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Characters from adaptations/media based off the Arthurian Legend

Characters from the Arthurian Legend

The wide scope of the medieval to modern Arthurian legend includes myth, legend, history, legend presented as history, literature, etc. While the "Arthurian era" is the main subject of the "Matter of Britain" (French: Matière de Bretagne), more widely the term refers to the entire legendary (and/or pseudohistorical) history of the British Isles and Brittany as understood by medieval writers. On the opposite end of the scale, local traditions of the Welsh, Cornish, Bretons etc. about more or less the relevant time period for the legend's origins and early development more or less helped influence the wider body of "Arthuriana". Some of the below figures are thus more like Arthurian by association through the wider Matter of Britain and/or the Arthurian era in general.

Multiple Myth Character Tropes

Badass Family: Though who's related to whom varies wildly Depending on the Author.
Blood Knight: Knights were expected, as a matter of honour, to go adventuring on a regular basis, and are generally more than happy to do so. The ones who make an attempt at settling down (as Ywaine did) get badgered back into it pretty quickly.
Defeat Means Friendship: Not always, but pretty frequently.
Depending on the Writer: Who appears,who has major and minor roles, who is related to whom, how characters act... and pretty much everything else. Often, characters can differ even in works by the same author to serve the plot.
Driven to Madness: A number of knights seem to be on a bit or a razor's edge, suffering from things like berserker rages and temporary bouts of lunacy. Lancelot in particular goes in and out of sanity like a yo-yo on crack. The fact that they're exposed to episodes of shocking violence and torture (some of which they perpetrate themselves), get spells cast directly on their minds, and live in a world chock-full of unearthly perils and strange magical lands doesn't help. There Are No Therapists, two thousand years ago, for either the characters or the people writing them.
Inconsistent Spelling: Variant spellings of names abound. Some distinct characters may have even resulted from people interpreting spelling variations as different people (ex. Morgause and Morgan). A manuscript of a work may even have different spellings for a name, which can then differ with other manuscripts of that same work (ex. Guinevere).
Law of Inverse Fertility: Arthur and Guinevere are generally never given any biological children together (of the Romances, only Perlesvaus gives them a son, Loholt, and while the Welsh stories give Arthur multiple children, they tend to be vague on the maternity of most of them) whilst Arthur and Morgause only need to copulate once to produce Mordred in tellings involving this Brother–Sister Incest.
Odd Name Out: King Arthur's nephews are Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth, Agravaine, and Mordred. Guess which ones are evil.
One-Steve Limit: Averted. There are several women named Elaine, and there are several different women who occassionally share the title "Lady of the Lake". There are also three Iseults—Tristram's lover (Iseult "the Fair"), her mother, and another princess who Tristram marries (Iseult "of the White Hands"), though at least this case is story relevant. There are also two Ectors, Arthur's foster-father Ector and Lancelot's half-brother Ector de Maris, and two men named Bors, King Bors and his son Bors of the Round Table.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: A great number of knights start out as royalty or nobility, others tend to get lands and castles pretty quickly. Many kings, including King Arthur himself, also are no strangers to combat.

King Arthur's Court

King Arthur

The central character of the myth, The Good King of Camelot, pupil of Merlin, husband of Guinevere, and founder of the Knights of the Round Table.

See King Arthur.

Merlin

A wizard who serves as Arthur's adviser and mentor.

See Merlin.

Guinevere

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guienvere_maying.png

Queen Guinevere's Maying by John Collier, 1900

Arthur's wife and Queen of Camelot. Like many characters in the myths, her origin and characterization varies, and she vacillates from a traitorous monarch to a noble and virtuous lady Depending on the Writer. In popular reinterpretations of the myth, her tragic affair with Lancelot is one of many factors that ultimately lead to Camelot's downfall.

Composite Character: Some Welsh sources (not the oldest by date of writing, but thought to be based on the oldest oral traditions) have Arthur having three wives, all named Guinevere (or rather, Gwenhwyfar). At the alleged grave at Glastonbury, discovered in 1191, the carving reportedly identified the buried people as Arthur and "Guinevere his second wife."
Damsel in Distress: One of the oldest motifs about her is that she's abducted by a jealous rival of Arthur. She's rescued by Arthur and his crew, or in later works Lancelot.
Evil Twin:
- Well, identical half-sister. On the same night Leodegrance fathered Guinevere, he also begat another girl on the wife of his seneschal. This "False Guinevere" was born on the same day, looked exactly like her half-sister and even had the same name (Leodegrance had strong genes, but it looks like he wasn't very imaginative). She managed to trick Arthur into thinking she was the real deal by tricking him into drinking a love potion, and tried to have Guinevere mutilated and banished (with Lancelot's help, she escaped). "False Guinevere" kept the charade up for years until the Pope himself stepped in and demanded Arthur take the real Guinevere back. He refused, and the Pope interdicted Britain for twenty-one months. After ten, "False Guinevere" had a stroke, lost every sense but sight and hearing, then began to rot alive, until she finally confessed and perished.
- A Welsh triad has left an early precursor version of the same archetype: apparently, the reason the Welsh Arthur and Mordred die at Camlann is because Gwenhwyfar and her sister Gwenhwyfache got into a fight over chestnuts. She was also seen as the wife of Mordred.
  - The blow Gwenhwyfach delivered to Gwenhwyfar resulted in Camlan and is one of the Three Unfortunate Blows (or hard slaps) in Welsh tradition. Striking a queen was one of the three ways of disgracing her.
God Save Us from the Queen!: She varies between this and The High Queen in several iterations or even she is a hybrid of both.
Face–Heel Turn: One version of the story has her eagerly joining up with Mordred's rebellion, bearing him two children, and eventually getting executed by Lancelot.
Fisher Queen: In Idylls of the King, she spends most of the story as a seeming paragon of nobility and queenhood whom (alongside Arthur) knights use as a standard to live by. Her affair with Lancelot, who as the greatest knight should have been an icon of chivalry, gradually corrupts and spoils the morality of all Camelot, with some knights going mad or cynical upon learning of it and others using it as a justification for their own wrongdoings. By the time it's an Open Secret, well, let's just say there's more than one reason the final tourney before the end is known as The Tournament of the Dead Innocence.
Inconsistent Spelling: Guenevere, Guenever, etc. The Welsh form is Gwenhwyfar. Jennifer is the modern spelling of the Cornish variant of the name.
- In just one manuscript of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, Guinevere's name is spelled differently every time she's mentioned (Ganhumara, Ganhumera, Guenhumara, Guenhuuara). Other manuscripts have more variations. For some reason, modern English translations of Geoffrey tend to go with spelling her name with a M, Guenhumara etc. instead of Guenhuuara or rather Guenhuvara (U and V not being separate letters yet), which is much closer to Gwenhwyfar. It's not "Guinemere" after all, so it's more likely that at some point, some copyist mistook another's cramped handwriting for "uu" i.e. "uv" for "um" rather than that the name was really spelled with an M at some point. But due to the influence of these English translations, modern historical-style retellings will sometimes use Guenhumara etc. with an M.
- In a few medieval works, her name is outright confused for other names like Guendoloena (modern Gwendolen, Gwendolyn, etc; it also derives from Geoffrey, referring to an earlier queen) or Gaynour (Gaynor).
Love Triangle: At the center of the most famous one of all time.
Smart People Play Chess: Apparently one of the most skilled players in the court.
One-Steve Limit: Averted in every traditional interpretation. In the Romances she has an identical half-sister also named Guinevere (usually referred to as the "False" Guinevere). In the Welsh sources Arthur has three wives, all named Gwenhwyfar. Even discounting the Three Gwenhwyfars, one Welsh source also mentions a Gwen Hyfar, Steward of Cornwall and one of the plotters of Camlann.
Rescue Romance: Sometimes Arthur first meets her and they fall in love after he saves her father's castle/kingdom from their common enemies. Then later, it's Lancelot who rescues her from her kidnapper...
Statuesque Stunner: Some of the older rhyms imply she is either of giant ancestry, was a giantess herself, or a Sizeshifter ^note.

Arthur's Children

While Arthur's most famous (or infamous) offspring is Mordred, various tales over the years ascribed him a number of children. Geoffrey of Monmouth never mentioned any of them, and Malory only mentioned one, barely, so the idea that Arthur had multiple children gradually fell by the wayside. In modern adaptations, however, Arthur's children have increasingly made appearances, both thanks to greater interest in pre-Malorian sources and due to authors have greater freedom with their personalites than they would with Mordred. The most well known are:

Amr, mentioned in Historia Brittonum, who was, for unknown reasons, killed by Arthur and buried in a grave that changes size with the season. He reappears, as Amhar, in the Mabinogion tale Geraint and Enid]] where he is one of his father's four chamberlains.
Gwydre, from the Mabinogion tale Culhwch and Olwen, is among those who die fighting the Twrch Trwyth. This is his only mention in traditional texts.
Duran is another son who is killed in conflict, with context implying he died at Camlann. He is only known from the Welsh poem ''The Death of Duran son of Arthur''.
Cydfan is mentioned in the Bonedd yr Arwyr as the son of Arthur and one Eleirch, daughter of Iaean of Caer Dathal. This is his only mention but some of his presumed uncles, sons of Iaean, are also mentioned in Culhwch and Olwen as kin to Arthur on his father's side.
Llacheu was apparently a somewhat important figure in Welsh texts. The Triads name him one the "Three Well-Endowed Men of Britain" and he and Cei are described as fighting alongside one another in Pa gur, but he also dies in battle.
Loholt, also known as Ilinot or Borre/Bohart le Cure Hardy, was likely based on Llacheu but developed into his own character. In Perlesvaus he is the legitimate son of Arthur and Guinevere, slays a terrible giant, and then is treacherously slain by Kay while resting from the deed. In the Vulgate Cycle, he is Arthur's bastard by Lady Lyzianor/Lisanor and dies after being imprisoned in Dolorous Garde. Malory uses the latter and calls him both Borre and Bohart, and his mother Lionors.
Also, there's Arthur the Less/Little (le Petit), who appears only in the Post-Vulgate Cycle. The bastard son of Arthur and the unnamed daughter of the knight Thanas.

Various sources also grant Arthur at least one daughter, but these sources tend to be either obscure genealogies or satires from the post-Malorian period. The most well known daughters he's given are Archfedd from the Bonedd y Saint geneaologies, Melora from the 17th-century Irish romance Mhelóra agus Orlando, and Gyneth from Sir Walter Scott's The Bridal of Triermain. Arthur was also claimed in the 16th-century Compendio Historical as the father of Baddo, the wife of King Reccared of the Visigoths, likely because of her name's phonetic similarity to Badon.

Action Girl: Melora and Gyneth are both depicted as warrior women.
Ambiguous Situation: Their maternity, save for Cydfan and Loholt and Arthur the Less, is never elaborated in most source material, and even Loholt is given two contradictory origins.
Child by Rape: Arthur the Less was conceived after Arthur took a maiden by force.
Composite Character:
- Mordred took a lot from the various sons of Arthur when he became one himself - Amr's paternal death, Duran's death at Camlann, and Cydfan's consanginous bastardry.
- Amr, thanks to his "Anir" spelling, is often conflated with an obscure folklore figure named Enir Fardd ap Ithel (Enir or Anir the Bard, son of Ithel) - it should be noted that the only source we have for Enir Fardd comes from the writings of the Iolo Morgannwg, who is infamous in scholarly circles for having been exposed as a forger.
Demoted to Extra: Borre le Cure Hardy is mentioned only a handful of times in Le Morte de Arthur, the most important scenes being his conception and being one of the knights who attempt to heal Sir Urre.
Dying Curse: Arthur the Less surprisingly outlives his father and most other knights, but after Arthur's death he goes after Lancelot and his relatives for causing all this trouble and gets himself killed, and his last words are a curse on the land, which subsequently gets invaded by the Irish under King Mark of all people.
Foil: Arthur the Less to Mordred, who by this time had already become a bastard son of Arthur as well, so he's basically Mordred's Good Counterpart by association.
Full-Boar Action: Gwydre is killed by the giant boar Twrch Trwyth.
Heroic Bastard: Arthur the Less is explicitly a bastard unlike most of these, and becomes a worthy knight who went on the Grail Quest, even accompanying Galahad for a time. Loholt/Borre as well, when he's not Guinevere's son.
Historical Domain Character: Queen Baddo of the Visigoths. While her actual origins aren't known, she was active a good half-century after the traditional date of Camlann and as mentioned above was likely connected with Arthur because of her name.
Inconsistent Spelling: Amr/Anir/Amhar, Cydfan/Kyduan, Loholt/Ilinot/Borre/Bohart, Archfedd/Archvedd, and many more besides. Gwydre and Duran avert this, although in Duran's case it's only because he shows up in one poem. Amr/Anir is almost certainly an issue of transcription in different editions of Historia Brittonum due to "m" looking like "ni" in cramped medieval handwriting, and Amr is probably the right form due to the later Amhar. Cydfan/Kyduan is not so different if "u" is read as "v", as this predates them becoming separate written letters. Even Arthur (the Less) is "Artus (le Petit)" in French, just like his father.
Luke, I Am Your Father: King Arthur reveals to Arthur the Less that he is his father but swears him to secrecy.
Meaningful Name: Arthur "the Less", because his father is Arthur "the Great", who any other Arthur shall forever be "lesser" to in any case. Before he's born, King Arthur himself tells the maiden's father to name the baby Arthur the Less if it's a boy or Guinevere if its a girl.
Moses in the Bulrushes: Soon after Arthur the Less is born, his grandfather murders his mother over a wholly unrelated matter (he'd murdered his own son and raped his own daughter-in-law, and his daughter knew too much). The grandfather abandons the baby in a forest, but he's rescued and raised by another woman.
Never Given a Name: Somehow Arthur the Less grows up like this after becoming a foundling, and he receives his rightful name when he goes to Camelot.
Secret-Keeper: Besides Arthur and the maiden's family, the only one who knows about Arthur the Less is Morgan le Fay. Arthur the Less is later told by Arthur never to reveal his parentage to anyone and he complies, until he's dying.

Taliesin

A Brythonic poet in Roman Briton who became a major Welsh cultural hero. He appears from time to time in Arthurian stories as the King's personal Bard in Arthur's Court.

Canon Welding: His appearances as both a traveling companion to King Brân the Blessed in the Mabinogion as well as King Arthur's bard which taken at face value would make him over 500 years old.
Expy: Seems to be at least partially one to Fionn mac Cumhaill of Irish myth since their origin stories about accidently consuming magical food that gives them the powers of a seer has many parallels. Though given the age of the material, it's impossible to tell which one is derived from the other.
- Some modern historical-style Arthurian works don't include Merlin because the original Welsh "Myrddin" was supposed to have lived long after Arthur. So they may use Taliesin as a substitute because he was associated with Arthur as early as the medieval tale of Culhwch and Olwen which is thought to preserve older traditions. Though Taliesin probably wasn't originally linked to the earliest Arthurian legend either. Those scholars who think Taliesin and Arthur were real people, or based on real people, place them at opposite ends of the 6th century.
Guile Hero: Tends to win by outsmarting his adversaries rather than through force.
Happily Adopted
Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Merlin. To the point in Vita Merlini they decide to retire to the Caledonian Forest together to spend their remaining few years in peace.
Hypercompetent Sidekick: To his stepfather, who he has to save multiple times from his own idiocy.
Magic Music: He's a bard, what else.
Seers: His primary ability thanks to inadvertently drinking the "Potion of Inspiration".
Pretty Boy: Said to be so beautiful that when he was born a vengeful Goddess that was trying to kill him moments before instantly forgave him after seeing his face.

Knights of the Round Table

Lancelot du Lac

One of the first additions to the Arthurian mythos by the Romances, and one of its most iconic characters. Lancelot du Lac is usually portrayed as one of the Round Table's greatest warriors and King Arthur's steadfast brother-in-arms. Lancelot is a notable knight errant and accomplishes many feats, but his affair with Queen Guinevere ultimately proves tragic.

Accidental Pornomancer: Lancelot is strictly a one-woman kind of guy, but he's also a Chick Magnet. This means he's often the target of unreciprocated interest from women.
- He was raped twice, once by Lady Elaine and again by Brisen, Lady Elane's servant.
- While he's traveling in Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, a woman offers to host him for the night if and only if he has sex with her. He very reluctantly agrees. The Questionable Consent and his distress is really emphasized by the narrative. In the end she lets him out of the deal at the last minute because he's so visibly uncomfortable.
The Ace: Usually the best warrior in the story, with his affair with Guinevere preventing him from being the "perfect" knight. Includes Master Swordsman, Master Lancer, Master Horseman, etc...
Aesop Amnesia: In The Vulgate Cycle, he resolves to give up on his adulterous affair with Guinevere after failing in the Grail Quest... a resolution that only lasts until he sees her again.
The Atoner: Most of his quest for the Holy Grail is him atoning for his sins.
Badass in Distress: For all his prowess, it isn’t rare for him to get locked up (or just lost) somewhere and Bors/Gawain/whoever else is available to have to go looking for him.
The Berserker: Something Monty Python and the Holy Grail definitely got right is that Lancelot tended to leave high body counts behind him, often of relatively innocent people. In the Vulgate especially he tends to have bouts of Ax-Crazy terrifying battle rage that are almost always extremely destructive to everything around him.
Breakout Character or O.C. Stand-in^notethe distinction—canon vs fanfic—is not a meaningful concept in folklore: Lancelot as we know him today, defined in relation to his adulterous affair with Guinevere, first appeared in Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart. That story was then retold in the Vulgate Cycle, and adulterous Lancelot was solidified. The character of Lancelot probably predates The Knight of the Cart (the story does a whole Canon Character All Along reveal with his identity that makes no sense if he's a new character) but there are no surviving pre-Chrétien texts which mention Lancelot, so we don't know what his earlier character was like. That said, there are earlier Arthurian texts — they just don't include him — suggesting his significance, if not his existence, began not too long before Chrétien.
Scholar Matilda Bruckner: What existed before Chrétien remains uncertain, but there is no doubt that his version became the starting point for all subsequent tales of Lancelot as the knight whose extraordinary prowess is inextricably linked to his love for Arthur's Queen.
- Backstory: Lancelot's backstory of being raised by a water fairy seems to be the sole aspect of Lancelot which predates The Knight of the Cart. In The Knight of the Cart, this backstory is mentioned in passing and not extrapolated upon, as if the audience is expected to already be familiar with it. It also appears in Lanzelet (another Lancelot-centered story from roughly 20 years later) which otherwise has very little in common with The Knight of the Cart, suggesting it was part of pre-existing Lancelot lore both texts were both drawing upon.
- Name: Older scholarship has linked Lancelot to the Welsh Arthurian figure of Llwch Lleawg in The Spoils of Annwn who helps Arthur seize a magic cauldron from the Underworld. This figure may be the same as Llenlleawg Gwyddel ("Llenlleawg the Gael" or "Llenlleawg the Irishman") from Culhwch and Olwen, who helps seize a magic cauldron from a giant, and/or Llwch Llawwynnauc ("Llwch of the Striking Hand") also mentioned in Culhwch and Olwen. In turn, the latter is believed to be a Welsh version of the Irish god Lugh, and his name adapted from "Lugh Lonnbemnech" ("Lugh of the Fierce Blows"). In turn, Lugh may also be manifested in Culhwch and Olwen as Llenlleawg the Irishman, and yet elsewhere as Lleu Llaw Gyffes ("Lleu of the Skillful Hand") in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion. Due to the confusing array of names, some scholars and fiction writers have sometimes mashed them together, like "Llwch Llenlleawg". It has been suggested that some or all of these figures are related to Lancelot because their names kind of look alike, and more pertinently "llwch" is a Welsh word for "lake" while Lancelot's full name is Lancelot du Lac or Lancelot of the Lake. The drawback is that Lancelot and all of these other figures have little in common, so treating him as a Canon Foreigner is the most favored theory nowadays.
Chick Magnet: Being The Ace and famously handsome, he attracts the attention of many women, including Guinevere, Elaine, and Morgan le Fay.
Cloud Cuckoolander: In the Vulgate and works written around that time, he has moments that at times really make you wonder what goes on in his head; he has a habit of suddenly going AWOL from Camelot, a tendency to go insane often, falls asleep in other knights’ pavilions repeatedly, becomes completely unable to fight at a tournament because of Guinevere’s beauty and literally falls off his horse, almost dies due to reopening injuries despite warnings because he really didn’t want to miss a tournament, and thinks that “He was a wimp anyway” is a good thing to say to a woman whose husband he just killed... Among many other things. Like with Percival below, his strange behavior may possibly be at least partially because of his unique upbringing, though it’s never stated to be so.
Cool Sword: For a fighter of his caliber, he doesn't really have a consistent or prominent one in the medieval texts.
- In the Old French Vulgate Cycle, he used one called Secace for the battle at Saxon Rock, but he borrowed it from Arthur (and Excalibur is stated to be Gawain's). In some manuscripts the name is spelled Seure or even Sequence.
- In one version of a much later Middle English work, Sir Beves of Hamtoun (or Sir Bevis of Hampton) — not even really Arthurian, mind — a sword named Aroundight is mentioned in passing and said to be Lancelot's. For some reason this is the sword some prominent modern versions have gone with, spelled Arondight or Alondite. There is no trace of such a name in older sources, and it seems to have been made up to rhyme with "might". In a 19th-century poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Aroundight is mentioned together with Joyeuse, "Excalibar", "Durindale" (Durendal, The Song of Roland) and Colada (The Song of El Cid), and this probably gave the name some staying power.
- A roughly contemporary Italian version of the Bevis of Hampton story has "Buovo d'Antona" use Lancelot's sword Chiarenza. Another Italian work L'Aspramonte names Lancelot's sword as Gastiga Folli, afterwards known as Chiarenza after it passed to Buovo, and it is renamed Altachiara when it passes to Ulivieri. But this seems to be creative Canon Welding, since this last owner is Olivier (Oliver) from the French work The Song of Roland and his sword is Hauteclere (Hauteclaire). The names Chiarenza and Gastiga Folli are also mirrored in other works in different langugages. Chiarenza is akin to Clarent, the name of Mordred's sword (stolen from Arthur) in one English version, while Gastiga Folli is akin to Chastiefol, a sword of Arthur in one French version — which itself may be reflective of an earlier cognate of the name Excalibur, Calesvol.
- In some modern novels, Lancelot's sword is named Joyeuse or Joyeaux, to go with his castle Joyous Gard, but this seems to be borrowed from Charlemagne of all people, who also figures in The Song of Roland.
Disproportionate Retribution: More than once, Lancelot, when out wandering, would wander into other knights' pavilions and make himself at home. When confronted by the understandably upset owners, well, he's Lancelot and they're generally nameless.
Early-Installment Weirdness: Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart (circa 1180) codified Lancelot's character, linking him forevermore to the Guinevere affair plot. Later depictions of him overwhelmingly draw upon this version of him. However, Lancelot probably did predate that story.
- Lancelot's very earliest recorded mentions are in Chretien's earlier works. In Erec and Enide (circa 1170) he appears as the third-greatest knight of Arthur, after Gawain and the hero Erec, but nothing else is said of him. He next appears in Cliges (circa 1176), where he loses to the hero Cliges in a joust. He's a Bit Character, little more than a name — and Chretien even spells his name "Lancelos".
- Lanzelet is an early German romance (between circa 1194 and 1214). It's the sole surviving story of Lancelot as a main character which does not draw upon his characterization from Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart. Here, Lancelot rescues Queen Guinevere from a villainous king who captured her — without falling in love with her! Instead he falls in love with and marries a woman named Iblis (who hardly ever appears in later romances), inherits her kingdom, and in the end settles down with her as The Good King, lives out his life Happily Married with her, his children, and even grandchildren, and dies peacefully on the same days as his wife.
- For a while even after he became more common in the mythos, Lancelot languished for some time as a B-lister at most, nowhere near as major a character as later legends would solidify him as. In one continuation of Perceval, he only ranks ninth out of the 15 knights Arthur brings with him to Chastel Orguellous. In the Gerbert version of Perceval, he's just one knight out of many Tristan subjects to The Worf Effect.
Even the Guys Want Him: Possibly one of Arthur's rivals for the throne, Galehaut.
Fatal Flaw:
- His illicit affair with Guinevere proves to be the undoing of the Round Table itself.
- His battle rage as well, which leads to him killing even many of his fellow Round Table knights.
Hunk: Usually depicted this way, except in The Once and Future King where he is called "The Ill-Made Knight" because he is ugly, though everyone still likes him anyway because he makes up for it by being a genuine great guy and fighter.
Inconsistent Spelling: His name's sometimes spelled "Launcelot" in English, seemingly reflecting the French pronunciation. A few Welsh works included him and adapted his name as "Lawnslot", supporting this.
Kill the Ones You Love: One version of the story has him executing Guinevere after she betrays Arthur and joins Mordred in his bid to rule England.
- In Mallory, he’s prophesied to one day kill his best friend. While indirect, he indeed kills Gawain by inflicting a critical wound on him.
Love Is Like Religion: Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart introduces Lancelot's affair with Guinevere, and worships her in an overtly semi-religious way. When he finds a tuft of her hair, he starts treating it like a holy relic (treating it with reverence and thinking it has magical panacea healing properties). In Catholicism, holy relics are body parts of saints, so this implies he regards Guinevere as akin to one. After the lovers spent their night of passion together, "When he leaves the room, he bows and acts precisely as if he were before a shrine."
Meaningful Name: A guy named Lancelot is one of the best knights ever? Sounds as obvious as a famous sniper being named "Gunnar", doesn't it? However, the origins of his name are heavily debated from Celtic and Germanic roots with theories behind it usually having a much less flagrant background. Some think it's merely a variation on the name Lancelin, or the word "lancelet" (little lance), and in a few early manuscripts it's written as the somewhat-less on-the-nose L'Ancelot (Ancelot being an old French word for "servant", that makes him "the servant").
Nom de Mom: His full name is Lancelot du Lac, or in English, Lancelot of the Lake. This is a reference to his backstory in which the Lady of the Lake raised him.
Number Two: Sometimes depicted like this, but in the tales he usually isn't because his knight-errantry gets in the way.
Raised by the Supernatural: Lancelot was spirited away as an infant and raised by a water fairy, the Lady of the Lake.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Son of King Ban of Benwick, with King Lancelot his maternal grandfather.
Single-Target Sexuality: In Chrétien, the Vulgate, and Mallory, where he seems incapable of being attracted to anyone not Guinevere. In the Vulgate especially he's rather aloof to other women as a result.
Chrétien: The knight has only one heart, and this one is really no longer his, but has been entrusted to some one else, so that he cannot bestow it elsewhere.
Sixth Ranger: He doesn't show up at the Round Table until long after it's assembled.
Sleeping with the Boss's Wife: In most versions of the mythos, the downfall of the Round Table is heralded by Arthur's friend and subordinate, Lancelot, having an affair with Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere.

Gawain the Knight of Maidens

The son of King Lot of Orkney and Arthur's half-sister Morgause, making him King Arthur's nephew and older brother to Agravaine, Gaheris, and Gareth. Following an incident on Arthur's wedding day where he accidentally killed a lady, Guinevere commanded that he protect all women as penance, and from that point on he became the Knight of Maidens.

The Ace: Earlier stories have him as Arthur's best warrior, and in one case, it was him that succeeded in the Grail quest. Adds a new light to his rivalry with Lancelot, doesn't it?
Adaptational Wimp: As a general rule of thumb, the more of a jerk he is in a given legend, the more nerfed he is.
The Big Guy: Especially as the sun rises (see The Power of the Sun below). He seems to be pretty strong even when not solar-enhanced.
Big Little Brother: Not him of course, but for whatever reason when appearances are described, he seems to have a record of being the big brother to these, as almost all of his siblings (or at least the four most commonly used) other than him have been described as taller than the others, or at least taller than him, at least once. While in certain stories the tallest among them could be Mordred, Agravain, or Gareth, it’s rarely him.
Brave Scot: Usually associated with Lothian and/or the Orkney islands, both now part of Scotland and rather distant from each other. But calling him Scottish is just as anachronistic as calling Arthur English, since the development of both cultural identities relied on the very Anglo-Saxon expansion that Arthur is supposed to have opposed, blending with the older Celtic culture.
But Not Too Foreign: In stories where his family's ruling of Orkney is emphasized, he is often made a member of Norwegian royalty from his father's side. ^note
Cain and Abel: In stories where Gawain has more presence, he becomes the Abel to Mordred's Cain; one telling of the legend carries the trope out to it's ultimate fulfillment, with Mordred killing Gawain in a final duel before Arthur and Mordred's date with destiny.
The Charmer: Said to have a “golden tongue” in the Vulgate, though he tends to be consistently charming in romances written around the time. In one episode in Escanor, his solution to a witch convinced by vitriolic townspeople to attack him was even basically to win her over by being nice, which is enough to reduce her into a pages-long apology over the misunderstanding.
Chick Magnet: He’s described as the protector of damsels after all, and his appeal to women seems to be one of the few traits almost all romances could agree on. In both Mallory's take and in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, he is glomped on by a female paramour with him doing nothing to attract their attention. With the lady of the Green Knight, he refutes her advances, because it wouldn't be honorable. In Parzival, a little girl even gets a Precocious Crush on him.
Chivalrous Pervert: He's definitely willing to reciprocate other advances though. It seems pretty apparent that the whole protector of damsels thing includes pleasing them as well. The lady of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight even references him having this reputation. And he's even willing to honor deals with less beautiful women like Ragnell, which ends up with her becoming smoking hot and him being a proto-feminist.
Clear My Name: One of his adventures in Parzival has him doing this.
Cool Sword: In some versions of the story, Arthur lends him Excalibur for a while, in others he uses a sword named Galuth or Galatine.
Death Equals Redemption: As he's dying, he writes a letter apologizing to Lancelot and asking him to come back and fight for Arthur.
Depending on the Writer: While literally every Arthurian character is and has been subject to this a lot, Gawain’s case may be especially egregious; he has been all over the map from The Ace In Shining Armor in earlier depictions, to a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing Jerkass in the Post-Vulgate who even Agravaine of all people calls out at one point, to a straight-up bad guy in the Prose Tristan, and everywhere in between. Mallory seemingly attempted to stitch together as much of him into one character as was possible, with really mixed results, resulting in either, depending on who you ask, a deeply complex character or a head-scratchingly bipolar one. Bizarrely, Malory is also suspected to have written The Marriage of Gawain, where he had a massive Character Rerailment and is written like Vulgate or pre-Vulgate Gawain.
Early-Installment Weirdness: In Geoffrey’s account, he makes mention of Mordred before he does of Gawain some passages later, Mordred is the more prominent of them, and the two are never mentioned together; some have taken this as implying he thought Mordred was older. Eventually, it became accepted that Gawain is always the oldest sibling, even if among the younger ones the order or even who they are can change around at times. Geoffrey also mentions no other brothers.
Family Honor: Gawain's main motivation, at least in Le Morte d'Arthur.
Fatal Flaw: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is all about him coming to term with his difficulties regarding honor. The typical knightly code of honor demands that he go get his head cut off by the Green Knight without fear, but when he actually faces his death, he flinches at the strike.
God in Human Form: Some scholars speculate that his strength waxing and waning with the sun may indicate the remnants of a connection with a pre-Christian Celtic solar deity.
Heterosexual Life-Partners:
- With Percival (who, in some stories, is his cousin). They swear eternal friendship after Gawain sees Percival soundly beat Kay. As initially at least, Percival and Gawain were supposed to be Foils to each other, it’s also an Odd Friendship.
- He’s also often set up as the best of friends with Lancelot; this also serves to give the writers tons of cruel Dramatic Irony to play with by making their later conflict that much more tragic.
- He is also often close to Ywain.
Hot-Blooded: He's one of the most eager and impetuous of Arthur's knights, whether putting notches on his sword or his bedpost. Ultimately his furious temper is what leads to the war between Arthur and Lancelot as much as anything else, and he refuses to back down even after the Pope demands the two factions stop fighting, personally going to war against Lancelot and Mordred on his own, duelling Lancelot and losing each time, with the last time mortally wounding him.
Ignored Epiphany: After being called out by Nacien the holy monk and oh by the way GOD HIMSELF for sinfully killing people he didn't have to, and given an example of how Lancelot laid down his arms after a life of violence and sin (true at the time). Gawaine acknowledges that he's done wrong but feels that the wounds he suffers in those battle are penance enough. This is a foreshadowing of how his pride—even in the face of divine rebuke—will indirectly lead to the war between Arthur and Lancelot, and to his decision to personally battle Lancelot even after the Pope ends that war.
Inconsistent Spelling: His name's alternatively spelled Gawaine, Gawan, Gauvain, Gavan, Walwain, Walgan... etc. It all seems to stem from Welsh Gwalchmai, the name of Arthur's nephew in that material, via Geoffrey's Latin Gualguanus.
Indy Ploy: One episode in Chrétien de Troyes's Perceval and Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival has him holding off an angry horde of townspeople while using a chess board as a shield. Of course, the chess pieces are described as being ten times as large as normal ones, and are also used as impromptu missile weapons at one point, so (assuming a board of equivalent size) that's actually not too impractical.
Interspecies Romance: Has a one-night stand with the fairy Blanchemal, leading to the birth of Sir Gingalain, aka La Bel Inconnu.
Knight Templar Big Brother: He flies into a rage after Lancelot kills Gareth and Gaheris (and Agravaine, in the Vulgate), becoming another character pushing Camelot to its ruin in his Unstoppable Rage.
Love at First Sight: Some versions of the Pelleas and Ettard story have him falling for Ettarde at first sight, thus giving him a rationale for betraying Pelleas by sleeping with her.
The Mentor: In stories before the Post-Vulgate, he tended to be cast as a sort of Cool Big Bro, an experienced, respected older knight to show the new knight of the day the ropes and for them to aspire to be.
My God, What Have I Done?: Mortally wounded after his second duel with Lancelot, he pens a letter to his former rival lamenting that the bad blood between them had broken the Round Table, and pleads with Lancelot to join his forces with Arthur to defeat Mordred and his army before dying.
Nom de Mom: His Welsh counterpart Gwalchmai ap Gwyar, "son of Gwyar". Gwyar appears to be his mother instead of father, as was usual, since she appears as Arthur's sister in genealogies. Some Welsh renditions of later Arthurian accounts put her name in place of Anna (better known as Morgause) and Gwalchmai instead of Gawain. Nothing is known of Gwalchmai's father, outside those aforementioned renditions that copy-paste and translate Gawain's father Lot as Lleu.
The Oath-Breaker: In the Pelleas and Ettard story, he swears to Sir Pelleas that he'll help him win over the uninterested Lady Ettard. Sleeping with her and then walking away from the whole situation does not, in fact, help.
Only Sane Man: In earlier portrayals in romances, he sometimes served as a voice of reason, like being the only one in the entire court (sans Lancelot, still captured by Maleagant), including Arthur himself, who didn’t refuse to let (a yet unnamed) Bors sit next to him or otherwise hassle the poor guy for coming to Camelot stuck in a cart, pointing out how Lancelot also had to ride in a cart and how it wasn’t his fault for being stuck with such terrible transportation, or generally serving as a saner, calmer foil to Lancelot and the responsible big brother to his siblings, especially Agravain — though it also wasn’t uncommon for him to be portrayed as kind of an oaf either.
Phlebotinum Battery: Sir Gawaine is solar-powered, he's strongest in the morning as the sun rises but grows weaker and as it sets.
The Power of the Sun: Some versions of the legends have him gain strength as the sun rises in the sky and lose it when it sets, whether as a function of his magic sword, of his being an Orkney, a magic baptism, or him being born at noon.
Their First Time: Some versions of the Pelleas and Ettard story have him and Ettarde losing their virginity to each other.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: The Holy Ghost (in prophetic dreams) and Nacien the holy monk tell him and Ector that the Knights of the Round table save for Galahad and Percival (virgins) and Bors (Had sex once but remained chaste since), were all wicked sinners who had murdered and wenched their way into souls so tarnished that many of them would suffer and even die in failed attempts to find the Sangreal. In particular Gawain is called out as a murderer who killed people unnecessarily, and considering the blood of his own cousin Uwaine was still drying on his lance thanks to an impromptu jousting match between them, that's pretty fair.
Trademark Favorite Food: Malory describes Gawain as being fond of fruit, especially apples and pears. This is exploited by Pinel, who poisons some apples at a feast in an attempt to kill Gawain.
The Worf Effect: The Johnny-come-lately knights (Lancelot et al.) often establish their badass cred by defeating him.
You Killed My Father:
- He and his brothers really don’t have a good relationship with Pellinore’s family (except Percival, but he becomes friends with him before his parentage is revealed), because Pellinore killed Lot. Though whether it’s simple dislike or he’s completely onboard with the blood feud thing is heavily Depending on the Writer.
- Also the cause of his feud with Lancelot that brings down the Round Table. His brothers Gaheris and Gareth are accidentally killed by Lancelot while unarmed. Notably when Lancelot earlier killed Agravaine Gawain wasn't so unhappy as he felt Agravaine brought this on himself through his spite, it's the deaths of his innocent brothers which spurs him into anger. Though in the Vulgate, Agravaine is killed alongside Gaheriet and Guerrehes, and Gawain is indeed avenging all three of them.

Agravaine the Proud

Gawain's brother and another of King Arthur's nephews. Unlike his heroic brothers, Agravaine is more outwardly malicious, and is usually portrayed as one of the knights who betrays Arthur in the end.

Adaptational Heroism: First Knight depicts him as a hero. On the other hand...
Adaptational Villainy: It seems he only starts being depicted a villain in the Vulgate and later tales. However, this is barely shown in practice, as before the Vulgate he’s merely namedropped for the most part, with his only big appearance being him offering himself in Gawain’s stead to be prosecuted in Perceval, and even there he’s already called “Agravaine the Proud”, implying that he’s a guy with some flaws and readers are expected to take that as a given.
Decomposite Character: He and his younger brothers Gaheris and Gareth may have begun as the same character, but the name evidence is clearer for the latter two. The Welsh prototype/counterpart of Gawain, Gwalchmai, seems to have had just one brother named Gwalchafed, but even less is known of him.
Green-Eyed Monster: Gaheris probably is more familiar with this than he’d like to be. Agravaine generally has a bad habit of holding grudges against better knights. In the Vulgate he also resents on Gawain’s behalf of being reminded that Lancelot is indeed stronger than Gawain, despite the fact that Gawain himself embraces the fact way more gracefully.
Inconsistent Spelling: Agravain, Aggravain, Agrafrayn, Agravan, Agravano, Agreuein, Egrefayn, Engrevain(s), Gefferen, Geffreyn, Griffayn. Logically, if Gawain is Gawain and not Gawaine, then Agravaine should be Agravain, but it's not always consistent.
Jerkass: Nasty like Mordred but much more apparently so. He’s often described as cruel, overly proud and heartless, and shows himself to be somewhat of a misogynist. He’s the brains behind the operation to expose Guinevere and Lancelot's affair.
- Some other highlights from various legends include saying he’d have sex — most likely forcefully — with a woman if he was locked in a room alone with her when the subject came up in conversation (which Gawain promptly beats up and chews him out for), attempting to basically rape a woman, only stopping when he gets grossed out by the scars on her legs and complains about them, leading to a sequence of events in which he gets cursed with even grosser injuries that can only be cured by the blood of the best and second best knight in the land so Gawain has to save him (and note, even Mordred, a little boy at this point, is portrayed sympathetically, crying when he realizes that it’s Gawain who came to save them because he thinks Gawain might die), his constant attempts to sabotage Gaheris, thinking that the death of his own mother whom he loved was a net positive because at least it means Gaheris gets kicked out, killing Dinadan despite the fact that Dinadan saved his and Mordred’s life before, and generally being a braggart.
Jerkass Has a Point: He is not a nice guy, but he does make a valid point that a Knight of the Round Table should not be having an affair with the king's wife.
Little Brother Instinct: In the Prose Lancelot, much like Gaheris, he’s extremely protective of Gawain and insists that Gawain is still the strongest of the Round Table, which leads to him getting into a fight with Bors when Bors rubs it in.
Pretty Boy: Apparently his face is one of his only good features.
Red Baron: "Agravaine the Arrogant/Proud", or “Agravaine of the Hard Hands”.
Sibling Rivalry: In many stories, he has an irrational, often one-sided hatred for Gaheris.
Token Evil Teammate: Had a reputation for malice and enviousness even before teaming up with Mordred. Still a respected member of the Table, who did the odd good deed or two.

Gaheris of Orkney

The third son of Lot and Morgause, he initially served as Gawain's squire before becoming a knight in his own right. He is most (in)famous for slaying his own mother after finding her with Sir Lamorak.

Adaptational Villainy: It isn’t uncommon for his worst traits to be Flanderized in modern works focusing on the Orkney siblings. Some, like the That Wicked Day series, even go so far as portray him as on par with Agravain. Though considering his actions in some legends, it may or may not be warranted.
Decomposite Character: He and Gareth may have been split from the same character of "Gawain's younger brother" due to the similarity of their names in old French and other Romance languages. In any case their characterizations evolved differently, and it's unclear how Agravaine relates to this.
Disproportionate Retribution: Seems to be his stock in trade. Killed a knight for saying Lancelot was better than Gawaine, beheaded his mother Morgause for the horrible crime of sleeping with the son of the guy who killed his father (Lamorak) and later teamed up with his brothers to brutally murder said son. It goes both ways, though. He once arranged for a peasant to be given a fine horse after accidentally getting his donkey killed.
Distinctive Appearances: Apparently his right arm was noticeably longer than his left.
Easily Forgiven: Apart from what seems to have been a temporary banishment, Arthur and the other Orkney brothers seem to be pretty accepting of his murder of Morgause, at least in Malory. As mentioned below, some other stories have him hiding the truth.
Frameup: Some versions of the story have him pinning Morgause's death on Lamorak.
Hypocrite:
- Rebuked Gawaine after he accidentally beheaded a lady who'd leapt in front of his stroke to protect her husband. Later quite deliberately beheaded his own mother for an even worse reason.
- Once came upon four pavilions. After helping himself to the food in one of them, he (chastely) bedded down in the fourth with a sleeping lady, not noticing her husband on the other side. Upon waking to see the furious husband yanking his wife out of bed by the hair, he lopped the guy's head off. Not too horrible so far, right? Well, then he demanded she love no one else but him and forced her to travel with him, killing three of her brothers and severely wounding the fourth when they tried to rescue her. Eventually she managed to get away from him by joining a convent.
Inconsistent Spelling: Due to the way old French worked, his name is spelled variations of either Gaheriet or Gaheries dpending on the case.
Self-Made Orphan: In a rage he kills Morgause, his mother, when he finds her sleeping with Lamorak.
The Quiet One: According to the Vulgate, he’s the least well-spoken of his brothers and a bit socially awkward (assuming that Gaheriet is supposed to be him and not Gareth).

Gareth Beaumains

The fourth son of Lot and Morgause, and after Mordred was reinterpreted as Arthur's son the youngest. A minor figure in the earlier romances, he was later given A Day in the Spotlight centered around the Fair Unknown motif, where he comes to Arthur's court incognito and is nicknamed "Beaumains" (Good, or rather Pretty, Hands) by Kay. After spending a year working in the kitchens of Camelot he then takes on a quest to save a princess from a wicked knight, wherein he succeeds, gaining fame, a wife, and spot on the Round Table.

Big Little Brother: According to both Mallory and Tennyson, he’s really tall.
Decomposite Character: He and Gaheris may have been split from the same character of "Gawain's younger brother" due to the similarity of their names in old French and other Romance languages. In any case their characterizations evolved differently, and it's unclear how Agravaine relates to this.
Inconsistent Spelling: Due to the way old French worked, his name is spelled variations of either Guerrehet or Guerrehes dpending on the case, including Gueherret/Gueherres which may have led to confusion with Gaheries/Gaheriet/Gaheris. There's evidence that even Malory couldn't keep it straight when using his sources.
Luke, I Am Your Father: He comes to Camelot hiding his identity and only later is revealed to be Gawain's youngest brother.
Nice Guy: The nicest and most innocent of the Orkney brothers, as even Gawain could be vengeful. Took no part in Lamorak's murder.
Pretty Boy: He was mockingly nicknamed "Beaumains" or "Fair Hands" by Sir Kay when he first came to Camelot disguised as a kitchen boy. He is often described as fair.

Mordred

The infamous archtraitor of Camelot, the son of Morgause by either Lot or Arthur himself and ultimately the one who kills Arthur at the Strife of Camlann.

Adaptational Heroism: In Boece's History of Scotland, he’s in fact very much the legitimate heir, and the final conflict is very much Arthur’s fault for deciding to Kick the Dog for little reason. According to Boece, it's even actually Arthur who cheats Mordred out of the throne, declaring the old succession agreement void because King Lot signed it, and King Lot is dead. Considering that Boece was a Scottish patriot, it’s pretty certain that this was because he was biased against England which had appropriated Arthur for itself as a royal symbol, and thus he himself appropriated Lot and his family line for Scotland.
Antagonistic Offspring: To Arthur, in the versions where he's his son and not just his nephew. One of the alternate names for the trope is Arthur And Mordred.
Awful Truth: In some stories, this becomes his Start of Darkness; the truth about his conception and future were enough to prompt a hard Face–Heel Turn.
Bastard Bastard: Following his Face–Heel Turn, whatever noble qualities he once had flew straight out the window.
Birds of a Feather: Probably the logic behind why out of the three non-Guinevere love interests he is associated with (one canonical in The Romance of Escanor, two Epileptic Trees), two, the girl from Escanor and Gwenhwyfach, are unpleasant people to say the least. The one exception is a saint, Cwyllog, who is somewhat more popular online at least than the other options probably because she’s the exception.
Cain and Abel: Some stories have him being rescued from the May Day massacre by Sir Sagramore's family and raised for several years as his stepbrother. That doesn't stop him from killing Sagramore at Camlann.
The Charmer: One early record from before he became widely known as a bad guy mentions that he was such a nice guy no one could say no to him, with some other Welsh sources also being consistent in describing him as a pretty cool guy, even as late as the list of the 24 Knights of the Round Table. An Italian romance depicts him as charming as well, though in this case it serves very useful in attracting followers for his rebellion.
Child by Rape: Some versions of the tale have Morgause using magic to get Arthur to sleep with her, particularly modern versions. Originally it seems to have been a perfectly consensual relationship, albeit one where neither was aware of their relation. However, in the Vulgate Estoire del Saint Grail, Arthur was tricked into believing that he was sleeping with the “beautiful woman from Ireland,” but was actually sleeping with Morgause unbeknownst to him. Arthur was grief stricken since they both knew that they were related to each other at the time. This seemingly influenced Mordred’s conception from the Vulgate Merlin, but with Morgause being whitewashed and Arthur wrongfully made into the scapegoat and subsequently blackened and tainted while at the same time not being condemned for it, probably because it was Morgause who tricked Arthur in their source, Vulgate Estoire del Saint Grail. Though, Modred’s father was originally named as King Lot, as far as we can tell.
Composite Character: possibly him being Arthur's son as well as his nephew was an influence from Amr, Arthur's son who appears in early (mainly Welsh) sources but not in later ones and who was killed by his father for yet unknown reasons.
Cool Sword: In one version swiped Clarent, Arthur's ceremonial sword, and eventually killed him with it.
Evil Nephew: In many later versions of the story, first from Geoffrey, Arthur is his uncle. Averted in some early versions that don't mention any relation at all.
Early-Installment Weirdness: His probable first appearance is in the Annals of Wales which say he and Arthur died in the same battle, with no context on whether they were on the same side or not. A later chronicle describes him glowingly as extremely polite and overall a Nice Guy in ways that would be unthinkable later even at his most sympathetic, and even outside of the legends themselves, he’s referenced as a brave, good knight, with at least two writers comparing the bravery and honor of their lord to him (while it is possible that two of these were talking about another Medraut, one of the latter two says his lord had “The strength of Arthur and the noble nature of Medraut”, making it pretty clear that he is indeed talking about this one). All evidence points to him originally being a perfectly respected, good warrior, and that somewhere, for unknown reasons, he became established as the evil knight who destroys the kingdom, a reputation which became cemented in the mythos ever since.
- In the earlier literary versions, he is not born of incest and is indeed just Arthur's legitimate and loyal nephew; born of Arthur's sister and her husband King Lot. Lacking children of his own, Arthur took him in as his heir. Some modern adaptations indeed use this interpretation and it's one of the few that might not use the Evil Nephew trope.
- In Geoffrey’s account, he seems to be Gawain’s older brother because his name is mentioned first. This occasionally popped up again in later works like Boece’s History of Scotland, but in most legend and especially nowadays, Gawain is always the oldest, and Mordred is usually the youngest.
Face–Heel Turn: In the Prose Lancelot, it’s shown he seemed quite promising during his first two years of knighthood, earning praise from Lancelot himself. He was once popular with the ladies, at least in the Welsh material, at one time, as well.
Fake King: Yes and no. Arthur leaves him in charge of the kingdom when he goes to fight Lancelot in France, and he does officially have himself declared king, but he isn't the rightful ruler. In some versions (often Scottish) Mordred is viewed as a legitimate ruler, or having the right to be, in the versions where Mordred/Medrawd is the son of Arthur’s sister and her husband, and thus born legitimate. Arthur himself falls into some sketchy territory about his own legitimacy (concerning his birth.)
Fallen Hero: Both in the literal and meta sense. He's often depicted as at least competent and loyal to Arthur until he finds out who his father is. However, the original legends take this even further, implying he's Arthur's peer and ally, biologically his nephew and legally his foster son. In these earliest accounts, the original reason for their inevitable confrontation can be supposedly tied into a spat between Gwenhwyfar and her sister Gwenhwyfach or is never explained, if it happened at all.
Freudian Excuse: In modern works, it’s common for his villainy to be explained by Morgause (or Morgan, if conflated with Morgause) having been a controlling Abusive Parent who raised him as a Tyke Bomb for her own gain. However, in legend he is either never raised by his parents or his upbringing is never elaborated on, and in one of the few times it is given some attention, in the Vulgate, Morgause seems to actually be a really loving mother. Though the May Day Massacre may be used instead, or the Awful Truth about his birth and destiny breaks him, and in Malory it’s implied that his behavior worsens after suffering a particularly bad blow to the head.
Genocide Backfire: He was one of the children in the May Day massacre, where King Arthur had all the children born on May Day sent out on a shoddily-built boat to die after receiving a prophecy that a child born on May Day would kill him. Mordred, of course, survived, grew up hating Arthur (or came to hate him after learning of this) and eventually killed him.
Hero Killer: Killed Lamorak, Dinadan, Sagramore, Ywain, and of course King Arthur himself. In some legends, he may kill Gawain.
Heroic BSoD: Being told that you're the bastard son of the king and his half-sister, prophesied to destroy the kingdom and do more harm in your lifetime than all your ancestors did good kind of does that to you. He came out of it...uh, pretty badly, actually.
I Have You Now, My Pretty: With Guinevere after he takes over the kingdom. Averted in versions of the story where she joins his rebellion and hooks up with him willingly, sometimes even bearing him two sons. Other versions it's averted in a different way, with her trying to seduce him and he rejects her outright, and in still others he makes it clear that he doesn't actually want her- he just wants Arthur to think she's in further danger.
I'm a Humanitarian: In one version of the story where Guinevere joins his rebellion, Lancelot kills her and locks Mordred in her tomb. He eventually eats her out of desperation, and then ultimately starves to death anyway.
Inbred and Evil: Some later versions of the story, and the most often referenced in modern adaptations for Dramatic Irony, have him as Arthur's illegitimate son with either Morgan or Morgause, both of whom were Arthur's half-sisters.
Inconsistent Spelling: Modred, Medraut, Medrawd, Medrod, etc. The form "Mordred" was probably irresistible to writers because it's similar to Latin mors or French mort, meaning Death.
Lawful Neutral: Some of the less villainous versions of Mordred have his antagonism towards Arthur and Lancelot partially born out of them constantly bending the rules at their whims. Mordred, believing in rule of law, took issue with this and it motivated or justified his power grab. This also made him quite popular with the lesser nobles and commoners for the belief even a king was beholden to law.
Mutual Kill: He and Arthur in the versions they kill each other.
Odd Name Out: Arthur's nephews are Gawain, Gaheris, Gareth, Agravain, and Morded. Want to guess which two put the fall of Camelot into motion by demanding Arthur punish Guinevere and Lancelot for their adultery?
Pet the Dog: Sometimes, he’s treated no different from any other knight; in the Vulgate, he takes part in a prank Dinadan sets up against King Mark (and this is after The Reveal), and in the tale of La Cote De Male, Brunor runs into him and they quest together as any two knights would, even telling Maledisant off for being unnecessarily harsh towards Brunor. In the Romance of Escanor, while he’s apparently courting an unpleasant woman, he also once again seems to be on friendly terms with Dinadan. The Alliterate Morte Arthur also portrays him relatively sympathetically, with him also coming across as a Sensitive Guy to Arthur’s warlike Manly Man, and he straight-up cries after killing Gawain, honoring him as a good knight like no other and a brother.
Shoot the Messenger: In the Prose Lancelot, he murdered the prophetic priest who revealed the truth about his life to him. Lancelot was pissed...because the priest was going to reveal his future next.
Token Evil Teammate: In spite of the severe downturn his personality took, he remained a member of the Round Table in good standing. But he was said to have been kind and chivalrous back then.
Tragic Villain: Particularly in modern interpretations, though even in Malory he notably gets a lot worse after suffering a major head injury (at Lancelot's hands) on the tourney field (which is consistent with real life stories of drastic personality changes after a brain injury). It's not as if he asked Morgause and Arthur to sleep together, and in many pre-modern versions there are definite suicidal overtones to his actions once he knows the Awful Truth. The problem is, he wants everyone else to go down with him.
Used to Be a Sweet Kid: In the Vulgate, he first gets a speaking role as child, where he’s a completely normal, even rather adorable innocent little boy who cries at the prospect of Gawain possibly dying from draining his blood, and with Agravain next to him he especially looks like a saint in comparison. Even as an adult, he’s shown to be a standup guy. ...And then he’s told about his destiny.
Villain with Good Publicity: According to Malory, when he took over Britain, he was popular with the people for bringing peace while Arthur's reign was more or less constant battles.

Kay the Seneschal

Arthur's stepbrother and seneschal, the son of Sir Ector. He originally came from the Welsh legends, where he was known as Cei ap Cynyr (Kay, son of Connor) and Cei Hir (Kay the Tall). In Geoffrey of Monmouth's tale, he was the founder of Chinon.

Adaptational Villainy: He may be a snarky, hotheaded jerk most of the time, but he would never betray Arthur or do something legitimately heinous outside of mere bullying... Except in Perlesvaus, and just in Perlesvaus, where he straight-up murders Loholt.
- In the Grove play Birds of Rhiannon he becomes an obstacle of Dagonet's, Taliesin's and the rest of the court bards' quest by saying Arthur is waiting for their return in Camelot (omitting that Arthur had died in the Battle of Camlann). After convincing Taliesin and the bards to return he fights Dagonet (gives the reason of hating him) and defeats him, running his sword through him.
Adaptational Wimp: Kay is one of the few characters for whom it can definitely be said to have gone through consistent Character Derailment, with his ability in combat being the most hard hit from the start. In early Welsh tales he’s The Ace of Arthur’s men and a Magic Knight, but he was seemingly severely nerfed out of the blue once Chrétien got a hold of him, as for whatever reason he became cemented as the designated Foil for the new knight of the day. Unfortunately for him all subsequent stories since, with few exceptions, kept this, making him essentially an early example of Memetic Loser.
The Big Guy: Known as "Kay the tall" and "the long man" in the Welsh legends, where he also has the power to grow to giant size.
Birds of a Feather: In The Romance of Escanor, a woman goes on a massive rant and chews Dinadan out mercilessly in response to his apathy to chivalric ideals, causing a baffled Dinadan to remark that with such a sharp tongue she and Kay would be made for each other. Unbeknownst to him but as known to the reader, said woman is Princess Andrivete, Kay’s love interest and future wife.
Boisterous Bruiser: Kay is almost always some sort of hotheaded braggart, whether portrayed as an upstanding guy or a boorish jerk; a good exception being John Boorman's Excalibur. But he’s still called gwyn (fair/beloved), at least in Welsh.
Butt-Monkey: In later versions where he merely exists to get beaten up.
Catchphrase: In early Welsh tales, “By the hand of my friend,” with singular hand referencing the fact that Bedwyr (Bedivere) is one-handed.
Cool Sword: In the Welsh tales, no one can heal wounds dealt by Kay's sword, either because the sword is magic or the patient is too dead.
Deadpan Snarker: Once Chrétien described him as “sharp-tongued”, the characterization pretty much stuck. Though he can be anywhere between The Gadfly and non-villainous Smug Snake Depending on the Writer.
Demoted to Extra: His role in later stories is severely reduced, though unlike many early characters he at least is present in some way most of the time due to him being cemented as Arthur’s stepbrother and seneschal.
Determinator: In “How Culhwch Won Olwen”, after a year of Arthur’s messengers searching for any details of Olwen and returning with none, Cai tells Culhwch that he and Arthur will search for Olwen, that neither Culhwch nor any of Arthur’s knights had ever met, until Culhwch admits she doesn’t exist or Olwen is found and united with Culhwch.
Early-Installment Weirdness: In the earliest Welsh tales and up until Geoffrey, he was consistently The Ace of the pack, with a myriad of magical abilities, his Bash Brother relationship with Bedwyr being a prominent feature, and possibly even having had his own set of tales starring him that has been lost to time. He is always described in glowing terms and hyped up to the max as an ultra-badass, that one Welsh poem even says only God could cause his death. Even as relatively late as Geoffrey, he fittingly goes out in an epic Heroic Sacrifice avenging Bedwyr's death against Rome.
Heterosexual Life-Partners: In the earliest tales, with Bedwyr, as well as Arthur.
- But later in "How Culhwch Won Olwen", Cai leaves Arthur's retinue after Arthur sings a mocking song about him, and refuses to join him ever again. But the tale says that eventually, after one of Arthur's allies killed him, Arthur avenged his death by slaying the killer in turn and all of his brothers.
- Later, as the whole idea of them being step-brothers was cemented, he became mainly associated with Arthur, their close relationship remaining even after Arthur finds out his true heritage, with Kay being said to be one of the most loyal members of the Court, invariably loyal and stalwart even as he became more boorish as the stories developed (with the odd exception of Perlesvaus).
Family Theme Naming: Possibly. In medieval Welsh his name is Cai or Cei, which is thought to derive from the Roman "Caius" or "Gaius", but also suggested to mean "way" or "path". His father Ector is called Cynyr in Welsh, which is thought to mean "way" or "path" also. This is supported by other theme-named patronymics in medieval Welsh literature and cognates cai and conair in medieval Irish. If Cai son of Cynyr means something like "Path son of Way", it's similar to cases like Drem son of Dremhidydd "Sight son of Vision" and Nerth son of Cadarn "Strength son of Strong" from the story Culhwch and Olwen.
Inconsistent Spelling: Cai or Cei in Welsh, Caius in Latin, Kex or Keu in French, etc.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He’s consistently portrayed as hotheaded and brash, with almost all stories after Chrétien upping his Jerkassery and boorishness. Still, he’s also consistently loyal to Arthur, and is never really a bad guy (with the exception of Perlesvaus).
- In one particularly vivid incident (from German tale The Crown) showing he does indeed care, a knight leaves a package which he says contains Gawain’s head as part of some sick prank. Everyone immediately thinks that it’s a prank... Except for Kay, who freaks out, unwraps it to see that indeed there’s not only a human head in there, but one that looks an awful lot like Gawain, and starts bawling and crying, holding the head to his chest, and actually faints on the spot. Even after he woke up, he apparently spent a good while cursing God for taking such a good man away from them and going up to every knight he can find out of anger that they were still skeptical and were seemingly not too ruffled about the apparent death of one of their most respected colleagues. Turns out it was indeed an Identical Stranger. While we don’t see what happens after this, one can only imagine Gawain was pretty touched when he heard of this upon coming back.
- His softer side is on full display in the Romance of Escanor, where he gets A Day in the Limelight and falls in love with Princess Andrivete of Northumbria and helps her take her kingdom back, for once becoming the romantic lead.
- Even in one of his more infamous moments, where he makes Gareth a kitchen boy and spends the next few months or so bullying him, he’s actually proud of the young knight when he gets to see in action how good he is.
The Lancer: Not actually Lancelot, despite the name. In many ways, Kay is a heroic Foil to Arthur, especially in portrayals where Arthur’s more fiery traits are toned down.
Magic Knight: In his earliest incarnation from the Welsh tales.
The Nicknamer: An example being Sir Gareth, who he dubs "Beaumains" after the former refuses to reveal his name.
Number Two: Together with Bedwyr, since they're roughly equal in precedence, though his name always comes first—until they're Demoted to Extra and supplanted by Lancelot. Though in-universe he remain’s Arthur’s right hand in court affairs.
Once Done, Never Forgotten:
- When Percival first showed up to Camelot, a woman who had previously sworn never to laugh unless she saw the man who would be the best knight in the world. When Percival arrives, she laughs. Kay is so insulted that he slaps her. Throughout the rest of the story, Percival's defeated foes keep coming back to Camelot to tell of how Percival was still trying to avenge her honor (basically to rub in how much of a douche Kay was).
- In the Welsh version, Peredur son of Efrog, Cai strikes a dwarf and then kicks a she-dwarf because they had pretended to be mute for the entire year they’d spent at the court, only to immediately talk to and greet and praise Peredur. Peredur defeats many other knights, and when they beg for mercy, he tells them to return to Arthur’s court to tell Arthur of his great service he has been doing as a vassal of Arthur. Arthur and his whole court, having heard of Peredur’s noble feats, berate Cai for driving away such a good lad as Peredur; Peredur refused to set foot in Arthur’s court unless he confronted “the tall man” (Cai/Kay) and avenged the insult to the dwarves.
Playing with Fire: In the Welsh tales Kay can generate so much body heat that he can keep dry in rain, which provides kindling to Arthur’s men when they are at their coldest. He can also weather fire well.
Power Trio: With Arthur and Bedwyr in early versions.
Punny Name: The interpretation of "Cai son of Cynyr" as meaning "Path son of Way". Later Geoffrey made "Caius" the founder of Chinon, which doesn't work today due to linguistic shift, if it ever did (it's shee-non, not chy-non or kye-non).
Reckless Sidekick: In at least one episode, when Arthur and his closest allies are cornered by the hostile knight-kings, outnumbered four to five, and all but prepared to surrender or die trying, Kay cuts the knot with a simple "then I'll take two of them!" and charges in head-first. Surprisingly for everyone including the sawwy reader, this works exactly as intended, becoming a rare Moment of Awesome for him.
Sizeshifter: One of his peculiar magic qualities in “How Culhwch Won Olwen.”
Snark Knight: In more modern works especially his snarkiness has led to him being played as a quite literal example of this and an Only Sane Man despite his boorishness in modern works (cf. The Idylls of the Queen).
Super Not-Drowning Skills: Kay can hold his breath underwater for 9 days and nights in the Welsh material. Even in later material, in Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, in a rare badass moment, he fails to cross the sword bridge but instead of giving up he swims the entire way over, and is still able to climb up the steep cliff face of the ravine after doing so. Unfortunately, he still gets caught by Maleagant, waiting for him at the other side, for his efforts.
The Friend Nobody Likes: Gwalchmai, Owain, Arthur, and eventually Arthur’s whole court scold him for his behavior in “Peredur son of Efrog.” Gwenhywfar casually says that Cai should be hanged for insulting such a man as Owain in “The Lady of the Well.” Peredur strongly despises Cai to the point where he refuses to set foot in Arthur’s court ever again until he has confronted him and avenged Cai’s insult to the dwarves, and Cai took such offense to the satirical englyn Arthur sang in “How Culhwch Won Olwen” that he refuses to have anything to do with Arthur. But Arthur and, if he appears, Bedwyr, still deeply care for Cai, and it’s assumed that the other knights do as well.
- In later tales, this became increasingly common. While even Chrétien implied that he is widely respected as seneschal in Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart, by his other works almost no one except for Arthur really seems to like him, though they rarely actually hate him either. This, like a lot of Chrétien‘s characterization of him, stuck.
Tsundere: See: his loyalty to his step-brother, the above episode involving Gawain’s apparent decapitated head, and his attitude towards Gareth. In his more likable portrayals, he’s often a platonic version of this of the Harsh variety.
The Un-Favorite: Downplayed. While Sir Ector treats Kay as well as Arthur, in some versions the infant Kay is breastfed by a peasant nursemaid because his own mother is occupied with breastfeeding the infant Arthur, upon Merlin's instructions. Later, once Arthur is due to become king, Ector tells him to excuse Kay for any poor behavior, because he must have gotten it from the milk of the peasant woman while Arthur got to have the noble milk of Kay's own mother in his place (it's In the Blood or rather In The Milk, apparently). Other versions just have Ector's wife breastfeed both Arthur and Kay, so they are "milk brothers" and this is a further bond between them.
The Worf Effect: He seems to have a habit of getting the crap beat out of him to show how much better the new knight du jour is, although some theorize that this is a case of Badass Decay, and that his original role was to be the one who tested new knights' combat skills (which would imply a high degree of skill on his part, since he'd need to not kill or maim his opponent while avoiding the same fate at their hands). The author of Parzival proposes this is the case, and throws Kay a bone, saying that Kay has a very important job and using that as a chance to grumble about his own lord’s lack of quality control, wishing they had a Kay too.

Bedivere

Bedivere initially appeared in Welsh legend as Bedwyr Bedrydant (Bedivere of the Perfect Sinews) and was a major figure in Culhwch and Olwen. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's tale he was Arthur's cup-bearer and the lord of Bayeux, but died in the Roman War. The early romances ignored him, but Malory put him back in focus by making him the Sole Survivor of Camlann and the knight who returned Excalibur to the lake.

Bash Brothers: Often paired with Kay in the oldest Welsh material. It is noted that once Kay storms off in a huff due to Arthur's mockery in "How Culhwch Won Olwen", Bedivere is never mentioned again in the tale either.
Battle Butler: Arthur's cup-bearer in later versions. Sometimes has a brother, Lucan, who is Arthur's designated butler.
Composite Character: In several modern Arthurian retellings favoring the older traditions as opposed to Malory et al, Lancelot does not appear. Instead, Bedivere is often made Guinevere's lover. It helps that many of Lancelot's usual traits applied to Bedivere in earlier stories also. This was first done in Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset, and a number of other works have followed suit, such as Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy, Gillian Bradshaw's In Winters Shadow, Joan Wolf's The Road To Avalon and Philip Reeve's Here Lies Arthur.
- Bedivere later took the role of Sir Griflet of throwing Arthur’s sword back.
Decomposite Character: Bedivere is named by Geoffrey as Arthur's "cup-bearer", but later authors emphasize his being a military commander (which he already was, besides cup-bearer) and make his title more along the lines of constable or marshal to complement/contrast Kay being the steward or seneschal, and he's given a brother Lucan who becomes the butler or wine-steward akin to the earlier role of cup-bearer.
Demoted to Extra: Just like Kay, his role was much reduced as the mythos grew and developed, though while Kay usually sticks around as Arthur’s brother, Bedivere is even more likely to be an afterthought at most. The Vulgate outright forgets he exists, in favor of his brother, Lucan, and his cousin, Griflet. Though in more modern literature he has been attracting more attention, often as a narrator, in visual media his only significant appearances continue to be Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Fate/Grand Order.
Handicapped Badass: In the oldest Welsh material, he is one-handed. He was also a Lightning Bruiser with a four pronged spear.
Heterosexual Life-Partners: with Kay in the earliest material.
Hunk: In Welsh material, said to be one of the most handsome men in Britain, next to Arthur himself and only one other man.
Inconsistent Spelling: His name is also spelled Bedevere in English, while it's Bedwyr in Welsh, Beduerus (i.e. Bedverus) in Latin, etc.
Number Two: Together with Kay, since they're roughly equal in precedence, though his name always comes second—until they're both Demoted to Extra and supplanted by Lancelot. This originally manifested in a Power Trio way, with Cai and Bedwyr as Arthur's chief followers/sidekicks/lackeys etc often mentioned together with him, while in later courtly terms Kay is the seneschal or steward while Bedivere is the marshal or constable.
Power Trio: With Arthur and Kay in early versions.
Punny Name: Geoffrey makes Bedivere's grandfather and namesake the founder of Bayeux (of Tapestry fame) just as he makes Kay the founder of Chinon.
Sole Survivor: Thanks to Malory, he may be best known today as the one knight of the Round Table who survives Arthur's last battle, and who throws Excalibur back into a lake, even though he did not survive that long in the earlier versions (the Welsh tradition has different survivors, though it doesn't mention his death but rather his grave; Geoffrey has him and Kay die fighting the Romans). Sometimes it’s a former squire named Sir Griflet (or Girflet) that throws back the sword. Bedivere's brother Lucan also lives long enough to help carry the mortally wounded Arthur, but the effort opens his own wounds and he dies first. Modern writers tend to keep Bedivere as the last survivor especially if he's also one of Arthur's oldest companions, for the irony and drama.

Percival de Gales

Raised in the wilderness by his mother and unaware of the wider world or his origins, Percivale was awestruck by a passing procession of knights and resolved to become one himself. In this journey he discovered his bithright as a son of King Pellinore, gained a seat on the Round Table, and became heavily involved in the Quest for the Holy Grail. He has a counterpart in Welsh legend named Peredur ap Efrog, who is generally accepted to have been inspired by a Brythonic king that died in 580 named Peredur Long-Spear who is associated with York (Ebrauc in Welsh).

The Ace: Was called "The Best Knight in the World." Not to mention he was the original hero of the grail quest before Galahad was created and he was reduced to a power trio.
Achievements in Ignorance: In many versions of his origin story, he basically beat the Red Knight (who may have killed his father) on accident, showing he’s a natural at the job. And “Percival of Galles” is basically Achievements in Ignorance: The Poem.
Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: In one story, he gets asked by a maiden to hunt a white stag. He gets distracted and takes ages to get it, and has to apologize to her for it.
Badass Family: In one version of his story his father Gahmuret was the finest knight of his time and his half brother Feirefiz was a knight as noble and skilled as Percival, the above "best knight in the world". Many other versions of his stories have his brothers and fathers as figures of note as well.
Breakout Character: Probably the only knight who rivals Lancelot or Galahad in terms of name recognition. If a parody knight’s name isn’t a Sir Verb-a-Lot, he most likely has a name that is a pun on Percival.
Chaste Hero: In later versions.
Celibate Hero: In some versions, and in most versions of the Grail Quest his hardest test is resisting a beautiful enchantress.
Cool Sword: In one set of stories gets a sword that can cut through anything and will never break... except in the toughest battle of his life.
Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: As a guest of the Fisher King, he saw a strange procession of people carrying magnificent objects, including a beautiful grail and a bleeding lance. Although dying of curiosity, he had always been told by his mother that it was rude to speak too much and so kept his mouth shut. Shortly after his return to Camelot, a loathly lady showed up at court and called him out, saying that if he'd only asked whom the grail served and why the lance bled, the Fisher King would have been cured of his wounds. In the Welsh version, Peredur son of Efrog, it’s his cousin’s decapitated head carried out on a dish instead of the Grail.
David Versus Goliath: Pretty much literally in some versions. When he first comes to Camelot, he's just a young guy armed with some javelins or darts and no armor to speak of and takes down a huge and powerful knight that the knights of Camelot were afraid to fight.
Determinator: In all versions is this.
The Ditz: Is often portrayed as extremely naive, to say the least. “Percival of Galles” is even basically a story about him unknowingly getting an invincibility ring from a maiden, and proceeding to bumble around doing unbelievable feats without batting an eye. In another, the Lemony Narrator cracks a remark about him thinking deeply about something “for once in his life”. In several stories, he forgets the name of his own sister he was raised with (and apparently frustrates her so much that in one story she causes King Arthur to straight-up cry from the sheer volume of frustration she unloaded in front of him), and sometimes he forgets his own name.
Good Is Dumb: Well, Good Is Badly-Educated, anyway. His mother deliberately raised him in isolation without teaching him about knighthood or civilization, in the hopes that he wouldn't turn out like his dead father and brothers. It didn't take.
Heterosexual Life-Partners: In some stories with Gawain, who is his cousin. In one legend he even chooses to share a curse Gawain brought upon himself; his willingness to sacrifice saves Gawain's life by splitting the curse in half and they each only get badly wounded.
Idiot Hero: In most stories, he's this in his younger days. Sometimes he grows out of it and into Messianic Archetype, sometimes he doesn't.
Inconsistent Spelling: Alternatively spelled Perceval, Percivale, Parzival, or Parsifal. His name becomes Peredur in a tale collected in the Welsh Mabinogion that corresponds to the French Perceval by Chrétien de Troyes, but it's debated which is derivative of the other. Peredur is attested elsewhere as a name while Chretien invented Perceval, so scholars disagree about which author did the renaming.
It's Personal: Cai/Kay kicks a dwarf and his she-dwarfin in Peredur’s presence. There were 2 dwarves at Arthur’s court for a whole year, receiving Arthur’s hospitality, yet they never spoke to anyone. Then Peredur shows up to Arthur’s court for the first time, wanting to be a knight, and the dwarves immediately greet and praise Peredur. Cai is angered that the dwarves have been mute for a year in (their host) Arthur’s presence, yet Peredur is who they shower with praise, so he strikes the dwarf and kicks the she-dwarf. Peredur leaves Arthur’s court, determined to avenge the insult Cai did to the dwarves. Peredur makes a name for himself, and tells all his defeated foes to go to Arthur’s court and tell of how he won’t return until he gets revenge on Cai. So the whole court yells at Cai for driving away such a fine lad. Peredur refuses to return unless he avenges that insult, which he does by breaking Cai’s arm and collarbone.
Kid-Appeal Character: A medieval version.
Love at First Sight: In Peredur son of Efrog, the Welsh version of Perceval, he certainly falls in love with women frequently. When he met Angharad Law Eurog, when she rejects him, he swears not to speak a single word to a Christian ever again until she says that he is the man she loves best. He kept it up so long he was called the Mute Knight. Eventually she spoke to him again, so he never broke his promise.
Master Swordsman: In some stories he's the best swordsman among the knights.
No Social Skills: After the death of his father and brothers, Percival's mother takes him to the Northern forests (either the North of Britain or North of Wales) where she raises him ignorant to the ways of men until the age of fifteen.
Oop North: In the Welsh tradition, Peredur son of Efrog comes from the North of Britain (the Old North), or at least his father did. His father Efrog was the founder of York.
Pretty Boy: He is the youngest of the knights, and according to some accounts the most feminine looking, as he was raised by his mother and never knew of men.
Power Trio: With Galahad and Bors.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: He's generally depicted as being of noble birth, with some authors making him another of King Pellinore's many, many children.
Took a Level in Badass: Took several between his first visit to Camelot and his unhorsing of Kay. The Welsh version has him thrust his spear under Cai’s jawbone, and hurl him far off into the distance, with his fall breaking his collarbone. Even Arthur temporarily feared for Cai’s health.
Weirdness Censor: Peredur doesn’t find anything strange enough to ask about it, even when a decapitated head is carried out on a salver, along with a bleeding lance. Though it’s less that he doesn’t notice and more that he’s trying not to ask questions. That decapitated head turns out to be his cousin’s.
Wide-Eyed Idealist: Usually.

Galahad the Pure

The illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, who was disguised as Guinevere. Prophesied to surpass his father in greatness, Galahad is a peerless warrior. He is best known for being one of the Grail Knights alongside Percival and Bors and the purest of all of them.

The Ace: Even better than his dad Lancelot.
Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: He encounters Joseph of Arimathea while in Sarras, and feels such religious ecstasy that he asks to die on the spot. Angels then proceed to yank him up into Heaven without any actual dying involved.
Chaste Hero: Well, what do you expect from the purest of Arthur's knights? It’s also highly implied that he’s incapable of feeling sexual desire at all.
- It's also implied that this is what makes him a better knight than his father — he has all of Lancelot's virtues, and all of his skills in equal measure, but without the Fatal Flaw that made Lancelot unworthy of the Grail: his illicit affair with Guinevere. Without that holding him back, Galahad can truly be considered the greatest knight in the world.
Child by Rape: Lancelot was tricked into sleeping with Galahad's mother via magical disguise.
The Chosen One: For the Grail quest in the later versions of them. In the earlier versions that he didn’t appear in, usually Perceval was the one that found the Grail, although Diu Crône has Gawain find the Grail.
Cool Sword: First wielded Sir Balin's Sword and later King David's sword, both of which which only he could draw safely. The former wounded anyone else who tried, the latter invited actual divine retribution.
Curb-Stomp Battle: His specialty is handing out these.
Heroic Bastard: Despite his illegitimacy, he is even more pure and heroic than his father Lancelot.
Inconsistent Spelling: In Old French works his name is Galaad. This is thought to derive from Gilead in the Bible since it was spelled that way in the Latin Vulgate.
Incorruptible Pure Pureness: So pure that he was the only knight in the world worthy of the Holy Grail, and later basically just walks into Heaven.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Lancelot is technically a king, and Galahad later briefly rules the mystical realm of Sarras alongside Percival and Bors.
Significant Name Overlap: "Galahad" was Lancelot's birth name.

Bors the Chaste

The son of King Bors, brother of Sir Lionel, and cousin of Sir Lancelot and Sir Ector de Maris. He was the third Grail Knight, and the only one of the three to return to Camelot. He later sided with Lancelot during the fallout of Guinevere's trial.

Chaste Hero: He really tries, and is mostly successful; he did have sex once but is forgiven for it, probably because he was basically raped.
Heterosexual Life-Partners: Was Lancelot’s cousin, in some legends raised alongside him, and is sometimes depicted as basically being willing to follow him to the ends of the Earth.
Inconsistent Spelling: His name is spelled Bors in some sources and Bohort in others.
Overshadowed by Awesome: Percival and Galahad are the most-remembered Grail Knights. Bors, if he's remembered at all, is that guy who the Killer Rabbit got to first.
Power Trio: With Percival and Galahad
Undead Author: He serves to avert this problem. After the Grail quest is complete, Galahad ascended to heaven and Percival went off to be a monk (or dies shortly after him). Bors was the only one to return to Arthur's court to tell the tale.

Tristan of Lyonesse

While there are a few mentions of him in early Celtic Arthurian material, he is best defined by his tragic romance with the lady Iseult — which might have started as a separate story that later authors incorporated into the wider Arthurian mythos.

Death by Despair: He dies of poison, but the false belief that Iseult has abandoned him is what makes him succumb to the poison before help arrives.
Guile Hero: Often uses guile and trickery to keep his affair secret.
I Call It "Vera": His bow is named Fail-Not.
Inconsistent Spelling: Also often known as Tristram. The Welsh equivalent is Drystan.
Moral Myopia: "Iseult, if Guinevere can cheat on a noble soul like Arthur, surely cheating on a jerk like King Mark is perfectly fine!"
Replacement Goldfish: Since he can't be together with Iseult, he marries another woman who is also named Iseult. This manages to go even worse than you'd expect.
Star-Crossed Lovers: His lover is married to his uncle and king, and he can only "meet" her in secret until they both die.
Together in Death: Tristan and his lover are buried side by side, and a honeysuckle springs from Iseult's grave and twirls around a hazel tree that grows from Tristan's grave. Or maybe it's a briar that twirls around a rose. Or maybe they're just plain dead.

Palomides

Green-Eyed Monster: Most of the reason he alternates between seeing Tristram as a brother-in-arms and wanting to gut him is because they are both in love with La Beale Isoud. Er, Isolde? Yseult? Whatever.
Inconsistent Spelling: Palamedes, Palomydes, Palornydes (probably due to misreading "m" as "rn").
Kick the Dog: On the receiving end of one. After she convinces Tristram to spare his life following one of their clashes, Isolde makes Palomides deliver a message to Guinevere stating that there were but four true lovers within the land: Guinevere and Lancelot and Tristram and Isolde. Ouch.
The Quest: Took over Pellinore's hunt of the Questing Beast.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Son of the Saracen king Esclabor.
Token Minority: Not the only ex-Saracen knight (his brothers Segwarides and Safir joined, too, and Sir Morien joined later), but certainly the most prominent by far.
Tsundere: A friendly (usually) version toward Tristram.

Segwarides

Bros Before Hoes: Forgives Tristram for sleeping with his wife, saying that he "will never hate a noble knight for a light lady". The fact that the two of them were trapped on the dangerous Isle of Servage at the time probably helped.
Composite Character: There was a Segwarides mentioned before this one, but as there's nothing differentiating them, most people treat them as the same character.
Inconsistent Spelling: Segurades.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: A younger son of the Saracen king Esclabor, also becomes Lord of the Isle of Servage after Tristram beats Nabon le Noire.

Safir

Inconsistent Spelling: Safere.
Mistaken Identity: Fought his brother Palomides disguised as Ector de Maris, without recognizing him.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: A younger son of the Saracen king Esclabor.

Lionel

Meaningful Name: The younger brother of Bors (and thus Lancelot's younger cousin) who got his name from a lion-shaped birthmark.
Sibling Murder: Tried to kill Bors once, after the latter chose to save a maiden over him when he was getting beat up by two evil knights. He came to his senses but only after killing a hermit and another Round Table knight, Calogrenant/Colgrevance, who got in the way.
Those Two Guys: He tends to be mentioned together with Ector de Maris due to being Lancelot's kinsmen and thus closest supporters, and when the Lancelot/Guinevere love affair blows up and the fellowship of the Table is broken, they join Lancelot's faction in the ensuing conflict against Arthur and Gawain.

Ector de Maris

Heroic Bastard: Lancelot's half-brother, the bastard son of King Ban.
Inconsistent Spelling: Hector.
Nom de Mom: His mother is the Lady de Maris.
One-Steve Limit: Averted, with the Ector/Hector who's Arthur's foster-father.
Those Two Guys: He tends to be mentioned together with his cousin Lionel due to being Lancelot's kinsmen and thus closest supporters, and when the Lancelot/Guinevere love affair blows up and the fellowship of the Table is broken, they join Lancelot's faction in the ensuing conflict against Arthur and Gawain.

Lucan

Bedivere's brother, a relatively minor but disproportionately high-ranking knight much like him.

Almighty Janitor: Averted. In spite of the name, as the Royal Butler, he was in charge of the Royal Household and Court, and was thus equal in rank to Kay the Seneschal and Bedivere the Constable/Marshal, not a mere servant.
Battle Butler: Though his duties kept him from adventuring as much as others.
Cassandra Truth: Warns Arthur that personally attacking Mordred after the Battle of Camlann was over would be pointless (he'd already "won" the battle) and dangerous (at least one prophetic dream had said so), but Arthur decides to go for it anyway. End result: One dead traitor, one dying king, and eventually one dead Lucan.
Critical Existence Failure: Picking up the mortally-wounded Arthur opens up one of his wounds, and his guts spill out, killing him instantly.
Decomposite Character: Seemingly with Bedivere and Kay. Bedivere is described as Arthur's cup-bearer by Geoffrey (who doesn't give him a brother), and later authors explicitly make Bedivere Arthur's marshal or constable i.e. Number Two in terms of military command, to go along with Kay being his sensechal or steward of the court/household, then further hair-splitting of these courtly roles led to the designated butler or boutellier (originally in charge of the household/court's wine) being Lucan.

Griflet

Bedivere's cousin and an ubiquitous if relatively minor knight.

Death by Adaptation: He was originally the Sole Survivor of the Round Table after the battle of Camlann who throws Excalibur back into the Lake. He and Lucan are the last two left standing with the mortally-wounded Arthur, but Lucan dies in the act of carrying Arthur to safety, so he's the last one left. But this role was later taken by Bedievere, and Griflet is made into one of the knights killed by Lancelot during Guinevere's execution.
Demotedto Extra: Mythologically speaking, Griflet was originally the Celtic god Gilfaethwy fab Dôn who much like other deities were reduced to humans and incorporated into the Arthurian mythos as minor characters. The only remnant of his former status is his epithet, "Le Fise de Dieu" ("the son of God") in reference to the ancestor deity Dôn.
Hot Guy, Ugly Wife: He continually entered and won the Sparrowhawk Tournament in order to gift the prize to his unattractive Lady, Rose Espanie.
Inconsistent Spelling: Girflez in Chrétien, Girflet in the Vulgate and even Jaufre in Occitan.
Small Role, Big Impact: Despite Griflet's minor status, he causes a ripple effect when his defeat at the hands of King Pellinore causes Arthur to have to save him which in turn leads to Arthur's sword being broken in battle thus requiring him to gain Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake.
The Worf Effect: He has a bad habit of being used as a punching bag to show off a new character which is even acknowledged in-universe with Gawain remarking that "never has someone been taken prisoner as much as Griflet".

Pellinore

See "Other Kings" below. Usually a king and the father of several Round Table knights, sometimes made a Round Table knight himself presumably or clearly before them.

Lamorak

A son of King Pellinore and one of the brothers of the hero Percival.

Disproportionate Retribution: Morgan le Fay, seeking to expose Guinevere and Lancelot's affair sent a magical drinking horn to King Arthur's court that no lady who was cuckolding her husband could drink from without spilling. Lamorak, out of resentment from the Don't You Dare Pity Me! incident below, intercepted the messenger and had it sent to King Mark's court instead. (How'd he know what it did? Never mind that.) Isoud and Tristram's affair was very nearly exposed as a result, and if Tristram wasn't invested in their rivalry before...
Don't You Dare Pity Me!: After the second time Lamorak unseated thirty knights in a row, King Mark ordered Tristram to fight him. Seeing how exhausted he was, Tristram refused to take the fight beyond unseating Lamorak from his horse. This led Lamorak to feel slighted, and touched off a rivalry between them.
Feuding Families: With the Orkney brothers (see Pellinore). Banging their mom didn't especially help things.
Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Lancelot and Palomides.
Hot-Blooded: Famed for his fiery temper (once got into a fight over whether Morgause or Guinevere was prettier) and his great strength (unseated thirty knights in a row in jousts on two occasions).
In the Back: Died from being stabbed by Mordred, sometimes after a three-hour battle with the other Orkney brothers (save Gareth).
Last-Second Chance: After being on the run for a while from the Orkneys, he shows up at a tournament and meets Arthur in secret. Arthur, who had previously allowed the Orkneys to hunt Lamorak, has had time to repent of this hasty decision and offers him forgiveness and protection if he'd only accept a truce with the Orkneys. Lamorak doesn't trust them to obey Arthur, and besides, he wants to avenge Morgause and his father, so he declines. Bad idea.
May–December Romance: With Morgause. Briefly.
Misplaced Retribution:
- He tells Gaheris that it wasn't Pellinore who killed Lot, but Balin Le Savage. It's unclear whether this is true, but Gaheris doesn't believe him.
- The Orkney brothers killed him to avenge Morgause. Well, except for Gareth, who was too kind-hearted to be vengeful, and Gaheris, who knew perfectly well that Lamorak wasn't responsible, but attacked him anyway. Averted in stories where Gaheris owns up right away and they just kill Lamorak because of the feud.
One-Man Army: After the circumstances of his death became known, people note that of course the Orkneys ambushed him, since he could easily have killed them all otherwise. It was still a three hour fight, which only ended because Mordred backstabbed him.
Out of Focus: Referred to as King Arthur's third-best knight (after Lancelot and Tristan), but barely shows up in the stories, and is almost unknown outside them.
Revenge Before Reason: As mentioned above, he refused an opportunity to resolve his feud with the Orkneys peacefully.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Son of King Pellinore.
What the Hell, Hero?: Gives Gaheris an extremely well-deserved one after he cuts off his mother's head.
You Killed My Father: To the Orkneys.

Aglovale

A son of King Pellinore and one of the brothers of the hero Percival.

Back for the Dead: Spent several years ruling alongside Morien's mother before returning to Arthur's court— just in time to be killed by Lancelot during his rescue of Guinevere.
Big Brother Mentor: Serves as this for Percival in some tales.
Inconsistent Spelling: Agglovale, Agloval, Agravale, Engloval(e).
The Promise: While seeking Lancelot, he hooks up with a Moorish princess, and swears to come back and marry her when his mission is over. Fourteen years later, his son Morien shows up to hold him to it.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Son of Pellinore, also becomes king of an Arabian land after fulfilling The Promise.
Wife-Basher Basher: One work of Arthurian lore mentions that Aglovale fought and humbled a misogynistic knight for abusing his lover.

Dagonet

King Arthur's Fool.

Adaptational Badass: Some post-medieval depictions of him have the creators of those works heightens some certain attributes of his to make him on par or more with the other Knights of the Roundtable.
- In the film King Arthur, and how! Also counts as Ascended Extra.
Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: For all his flaws, he did manage to track down and kill the guy who kidnapped his wife, so there may be something there.
- How it went down is Depending on the Writer.
  - One version has him, upon finding out Hellior of the Thorn kidnapped his wife, rode out to Hellior's castle and with Tranquil Fury as a One-Man Army slayed the gate guards and incapacitated the guards inside, all without saying a word, and in a Single-Stroke Battle decapitated Hellior. After freeing his wife, they returned to Camelot, humbly spoke not of the adventure and returned to his jolly jester personality to comfort his wife who was still shaken from the ordeal. The court would later learn of the ordeal sans the details but Dagonet does not elaborate when asked except to the one and only person who could, King Arthur whom he calls his brother fool. When King Arthur asked for details, Dagonet admits that some sort of madness had overtaken him and doesn't remember what he did in the duration between learning of the kidnapping to until the journey of them returning to Camelot.
- Even before that, Dagonet won his wife's hand in a jousting tournament.
Inconsistent Spelling: Dagenet, Daguenes, Daguenet, Daguenez li Coars, Danguenes de Carlion.
Joke Character: King Arthur's jester, knighted as a gag. Participates in a lot of pranks based around his lack of competence.
Karma Houdini: False Guinevere puts him in charge of the Royal Household, which he proceeds to bankrupt^note, and he kills the Royal Treasurer Fole for taking him to task over it^note. No one seems to care.
Knight in Sour Armor: In Idylls, he's aware of just how corrupt Camelot and the Round Table have become, and says so.
Lovable Coward: So hilarious and good-natured that the other knights don't care how often he runs from battles.
Master of Disguise: There were a few medieval and post-medieval stories of him being in disguise.
- An anecdote from medieval times has him do a Clothing Switch with Sir Mordred's armor to trick King Mark of Cornwall that he was Lancelot.
- In the verse play The Birth of Galahad, Dagonet on his way to deliver a letter from Guinevere to Lancelot in the front lines, gets captured and held in the Roman camp of Lucius Tiberius. As Lucius and Publius discuss what to do with the information in the letter, Dagonet observes Lucius in order to pick up his mannerisms, and just by using Lucius's tossed aside imperial cloak, he exfiltrated pretending to be him taking advantage of the Security Blind Spot of Lucius and Publius turning their back to him while engrossed in conversation with each other as the Roman soldiers were still setting up camp and the soldiers did not want the ire of whom they thought was their leader. Later in the play, as part of an operation to save the captured Sir Galahault and Gwenevere, he infiltrated Rome as a slave sold to Voconius working as his scriber.
Miles Gloriosus: Tried for this, constantly boasting and doing things like battering his shield so it looked like he'd been in a nasty fight, but no one was fooled.
Mirth to Power: That's his job. Sometimes (such as in Tennyson's Idylls) he even shows the insight one might expect from one of these characters.
Multiple-Choice Future: Depending on the Writer, Dagonet's life ends from being struck down by a fellow knight:
- In the poem Dagonet, Arthur's Fool by Muriel St. Clair Byrne, Dagonet fought in the Battle of Camlann and was left to die then Mordred came upon him and struck him in the mouth due to hating him. Dagonet just laughs in Mordred's face.
- In the Grove play Birds of Rhiannon, instead of taking part in the Battle of Camlann, Dagonet is with Taliesin and the court bards on a quest from Merlin to go "beyond the furthest hill" to find their lost childhood dreams. Kay disrupts them and tricks all but Dagonet to abandon their quest by saying that Arthur is waiting for them in Camelot. After being the only two left, Dagonet refusing to return and Kay hating him, they fought which ends with Kay victorious and leaving Dagonet to die after running him through with his (presumably signature) sword.^note
- In A Forgotten Idyll by William Bacon Scofield, taking place years after the fall of Camelot, "old Dagonet" is the last of the original Arthur's Knights of the Round Table and now serves as the jester for a new Arthur. He dies from injuries from the joust as his alter ego the Forest Knight (the champion of Thelda, new Arthur's queen-wife) against Urich (who was plotting to usurp Arthur) but not before revealing the latter's treachery.
Undying Loyalty: Is often depicted as one of the most loyal to King Arthur. Though there are other depictions where he changes loyalty to Merlin. Then there are others where he is Guinevere's knight.
Water Torture: Was a victim of this by the hands of an unrecognizable Sir Tristan who had gone mad. Tristan dunked his head in a well 4-5 times.

Dinadan

Badass Family: Son of Sir Breunor Senior, "The Good Knight Without Fear", brother to Sir Breunor le Noire aka "La Cote Mal Taile" and Sir Daniel.
Beware the Silly Ones: Funny as he can be, and as much as he hates getting into fights, he's as capable a fighter as the other knights, and acquits himself well in tournaments.
Brutal Honesty: When traveling with a mysterious knight, he mocks the knight's incompetence. Upon learning said knight is King Mark traveling incognito, Dinadan lets loose with both barrels, calling him a cowardly murderer, and crappy king, to boot.
Celibate Hero:

"'Madam,' said Dinadan, 'I marvel of Sir Tristram and other lovers, what aileth them to be so mad and so sotted upon women.'
"'Why,' said La Belle Isoud, 'are ye a knight and be no lover?'
"'Nay,' said Sir Dinadan, 'for the joy of love is too short, and the sorrow thereof, and what cometh thereof, dureth over long.'

The Charmer: Easily able to win people over and cheer them up. Just about every knight likes him.
Deadpan Snarker: Depicted as among the wittiest of Arthur's knights in general, with modern adaptations tending to emphasize this particular trope.
Disproportionate Retribution: Mordred and Agravaine killed him in part because of resentment over the incident below and "because of Sir Lamorak"—given his personality, it's likely he made some remark regarding their treacherous assassination of said knight.
The Gadfly: Occasionally took on this role in order to encourage his fellow knights.
Knight in Sour Armor: Could occasionally be this, as when he teamed up with Tristan and spent most of the time complaining about all the fights Tristram got him into, calling Tristram and Lancelot nuts for being Blood Knights, and cursing the day he'd entered Tristram's company.
Lampshade Hanging: May be a subtle way of writers indicating that they’re indeed aware of how irrational stuff that happens in chivalric romances can be.
Love Hurts: Why he doesn't get involved with it. "The Secret of Sir Dinadan" surmises that there may be a good reason he feels this way.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Saves Mordred and Agravaine from Breuse Sans Pitie, then gets murdered by them during the Grail Quest.
Only Sane Man: Stories tend to have him pointing out the flaws in society, mentioning how stupid is it to get into all these unnecessary battles over honor, or courtly love, or just because. Even in stories where he doesn't, he still prefers talking things out to dueling. Not that he can't throw down if he needs to.
Silly Rabbit, Romance Is for Kids!: One of the few if not only knights to not only reject romance for secular reasons, but declare it foolish and not worth his time.
The Smart Guy: Possessed a great deal of common sense, and is seemingly one of the few knights who can identify other knights by their faces as well as their coats of arms. Given the sheer number of duels caused by mistaken identities in these stories, this makes him pretty useful to have around.
Ungrateful Bastard:
- Not him, but after rescuing Mordred and Agravaine from Breuse Sans Pitie, Dalan, the guy they'd been trying to rescue claims that Dinadan killed his father, so he attacks him. Dinadan knocks Dalan off his horse and breaks his neck. Also, Mordred and Agravaine eventually kill him.
Warrior Poet: Wrote a mocking ballad about King Mark that was apparently downright savage. If Tristram's reaction to reading it (Roughly: "Ha! Oh, that Dinadan!") is any indication, he did this sort of thing a lot.
Weapon Specialization: Apparently famed for his skill with a spear. Might be a bit of Weapon-Based Characterization, as well. A spear is a pretty sensible weapon for not getting killed in a melee fight, not to mention very effective for the price, and Dinadan is, if nothing else, sensible and practical.
Witty Banter: Many of his conversations consist of this.

Uriens

See "Other Kings" below. Usually a king and the father of at least one Round Table knight, sometimes made a Round Table knight himself before or alongside him.

Erec, son of Lac/Geraint, son of Erbin

In 1170, Chretien de Troyes wrote Erec and Enide, a Romance where Arthur's second greatest knight Sir Erec, son of King Lac, undertook adventures, first winning the heart of the lovely lady Enide and then reconciling with her after a marital dispute. Erec remained mildly popular as his story received a Norse translation (Erex Saga) and he had new adventures in the Prose Erec, a continuation of the Post-Vulgate Merlin, although without Enide. Despite supposedly being better than any knight other than Lancelot, however, he never became a big name in the Romances and fell out of interest as the Grail Quest became the defining story. In Wales, however, the story was popular enough to be included in the Mabinogion - however, Erec's name was changed to Geraint, son of Erbin, and the story's title was changed to ... Geraint, son of Erbin. Geraint was a figure who had shown up in Welsh tradition (both the genealogies and Culhwch and Olwen) and is believed to have been chosen because he would have been more familiar to Welsh audiences than Erec was. Thus, as Erec faded further and further in relevance in the French stories, Geraint remained relevant in the Welsh stories. Lord Tennyson used "Geraint" instead of "Erec" for Idylls of the King because of this, and as a result even modern works which wholly adapt the Romances tend to favor "Geraint" over "Erec."

The Ace: Erec is Arthur's second best knight, superior to Lancelot but inferior to Gawain and Gawain alone. He was as handsome as Absalom, as wise as Solomon, as strong as a lion (one translation suggests this was meant to be read as Samson to keep the biblical references going) and as generous as Alexander the Great.
Adaptational Backstory Change: Erec is a prince, and traditional interpretations of Welsh sources make Geraint and his father Erbin kings. In Geraint, son of Erbin, Erbin is a poor shepherd, giving Geraint's story a Rags to Riches motif.
Composite Character:
- The Mabinogion took the story of Erec and changed the main character from Erec to the pre-existing folk hero Geraint ap Erbin.
- Geraint himself may be a version of this, as there are a few "Geraints" mentioned in Welsh, Cornish, and Breton folklore without the patronymic, any of whom could have inspired the character:
  - Gerontius was the Magister Militum (Master of Soldiers, i.e. primary general) for the pretender emperor Constantinus III. Like Constantinus himself, little is known about Gerontius's origins, although it is known that he was a Briton. He infamously assassinated Constantinus's son Constans when things took a turn for the worst for the pretender. Gerontius himself would take his own life within a year, alongside his wife (who one source names "Nonnichia"). Gerontius is probably best known for Geoffrey of Monmouth attaching his actions to the story of Vortigern.
  - "Gerontou" father of "Catou" (Cadwy/Cador) shows up at the head of the genealogy of Saint Winnoc.
  - "Gerennius" is a king of Dumnonia whom Saint Teilo meets during the Plague of Justinian, and who dies seven years later. He may also be the same figure as the folk-saint of Gerrans in Cornwall.
  - "Gerren rac Deheu" (Geraint of the South) is a figure who dies at the Battle of Catraeth around 600.
  - The name, is various permutations, appears in the Welsh genealogies of Dumnonia. In the Bonedd y Saint he is named as a the father of Erbin and son of Lud, but all other genealogies he is the son of Erbin and father of Cadwy/Cador, with Lud never mentioned elsewhere.
  - To complicate matters further, the Welsh translations of History of the Kings of Britain use Gorlois in place of Gereint as Cador's father.
- Due to language, some have also seen links between Erec (an earlier form of the name being Guerec, though not in Chretien) son of Lac and various maternal relatives of Arthur all named Gweir, sons of Llwch - as Lac and Llwch both seem to mean "lake" - and thus such a name shuffle from Gweir to Guerec/Erec to Geraint might be reinforced by the vague similarities.
Courtly Love: While most romances involve extramarital relationships, Geraint/Erec marries Enid(e) early on.
Family Theme Naming: Geraint sits at the centerpoint of six generations of Dumnonian royalty using Latin names - his grandfather Custennin Corneu (Constantinus), his father Erbin (Urbanus), himself (Gerontius), and his grandson Custennin (Constantinus again). His son Cador sticks out with a British name, but tradition gives Cador two younger brothers named Saint Just (for Iustinus, the Latin source of Justin) and Saint Levan (Solomanus, which granted is originally Hebrew but still came to Britain via the Romans).
Historical Domain Character: Besides the various possible "originals" of Geraint, Erec seems to be derived from the Breton Guerec, earlier Gweroc or Weroc, the name of someone who got part of Brittany named after him - "Bro Weroc", land/country of Weroc", which later mutated to the even closer "Broerec". The area was alternately known as "Bro Wened/Gwened" from the Veneti, the local Celtic tribe - who also lent their name to the town/city of Vannes, which Erec is associated with. It's also noted that as the name Erec can be derived from Bro Weroc/Broerec, so can Enide from Bro Wened, which likewise could have mutated further into "Broened".
Inconsistent Spelling: Geraint is a Welsh interpretation of the Roman name Gerontius, so it has been spelled quite a few ways before Welsh became standardized: Gerennius, Gerren, and Gereint are the three most common variants.
Out of Focus: Erec, and by extent his supporting cast, fell out of interest as the Grail Story developed. He possibly shows up in Malory, his name mutated from "Erec le Fils Lac" to "Sir Harry le Fise Lake", as an incredibly minor character.
Plot-Inciting Infidelity: After Geraint believes that his wife Enid is in love with another man, he and Enid go out on a quest into parts unknown. After a series of mishaps, the couple eventually reconciled and is reunited with Arthur’s court (Arthur and his men went searching for him) and also leads to his encounter with Owain.
Pretty Boy: Erec is said to be as handsome as Absalom (King David's third son, who in the Middle Ages was the go to reference for handsomeness).
Values Dissonance: Enide says that she fears for Erec's honor as he enjoyed domestic bliss more than battles and adventures. His reaction is to go on and adventure and drag her (and only her) along, acting emotionally abusive towards her and forbidding her to speak to him for any reason. Note that he does not have the Mistaken for Cheating justification for this that Geraint does.

Ywain

Androcles' Lion: Probably what he's best known for.
Animal Motifs: Lions for obvious reasons, ravens due to The Dream of Rhonabwy and his connection to Morgan le Fay.
Blood Knight: Settled down for a bit after marrying Laudine, but Gawain showed up and tempted him back into adventure. Laudine agreed to let him go Walking the Earth, but only if he would return to her after one year. She eventually had to send someone to hunt Ywain down and tell him not to bother coming back.
Disproportionate Retribution: Esclados the Red, guardian of a supernatural storm-causing fountain, fought Ywain's cousin Calogrenant after he came upon said fountain and caused a dangerous tempest and allowed him to leave after defeating him. Ywain, upon hearing of this, hunts Esclados down, kills him, and takes his widow for himself.
Driven to Madness: By his breakup with Laudine.
Historical Domain Character: Ywain son of Uriens is derived from a real figure, Owain son of Urien.
Inconsistent Spelling: Yvain, Ywaine, Uwaine, Ewaine. Based on the Welsh form Owain. Eventus in Latin per Geoffrey.
One-Steve Limit: Defied when he's later given a paternal half-brother also named Ywain.
Related in the Adaptation: In the original Chretien de Troyes story where he first appears, Morgan shows up to cure him of madness, becaust at the time she was still a benevolent Fairy Godmother type. In later versions she's often his mother. Even if she's not, he's usually still a nephew to Arthur, a fact not mentioned at his debut.
Ring of Power: Laudine gives him one to protect him when he goes off adventuring, and takes it back when he breaks his promise.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Son of King Uriens and (sometimes) Morgan Le Fay.
Second Love: For Esclados' widow Laudine. Eventually.
Undying Loyalty: Earned a loyal Lion companion for saving it from a dragon.
You Killed My Father: Esclados beat up his cousin. He was not happy about that.

Ywain the Bastard

Adapted Out: Ywain the legitimate is already relatively obscure today compared to other knights and nephews of Arthur, so Ywain the bastard is often dropped or folded into him.
Heroic Bastard: King Uriens's other son also named Ywain, accompanied his brother to the Round Table and went on the Grail Quest.

Caradoc Briefbras

Ambiguous Situation: Sometimes somehow yet another nephew of Arthur from yet another sister, just not the more famous Morgan and Morgause. May result from being (re)combined with his father also named Caradoc, who is sometimes said to have married one of Arthur's sisters.
Decomposite Character: May have began in Welsh material as a "chief elder" named Caradoc Vreichvras ("Caradoc Strong-Arm"), then split into King Caradoc and his son Sir Caradoc, plus any other Caradocs. Then it may loop back around to Composite Character like depending on who gets the epithet.
Depending on the Writer: If he's related to Arthur, sometimes he's a nephew, sometimes a great-nephew instead with his mother being a niece of Arthur's, so he calls Gawain his uncle.
Handicapped Badass: Known as Caradoc Briefbras, "Caradoc Short-Arm", but still a doughty knight. It varies if this refers to the king Caradoc or his son also named Caradoc. If the latter, an explanation given is that his arm was shriveled due to magic. Note that French Briefbras seems to be a "Blind Idiot" Translation of Welsh Vreichvras with an opposite meaning.
Luke, I Am Your Father: In the Life of Caradoc posthumously attached to Chretien's Perceval by others, Sir Caradoc grows up believing he is the son of King Caradoc. One day a wizard named Eliavres comes to Arthur's court daring someone to chop off his head, on the conditon that he gets to return the blow next year. (A similar motif most famously appears in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.) Sir Caradoc does it after no one else steps forward, then Eliavres just puts his head back on. But next year when he returns, he doesn't return the blow and reveals to Caradoc that he is his true father. Caradoc doesn't take it well, and long story short his wizard father curses him to have a magical snake wrapped around his arm, making it shrivel, hence his epithet Briefbras or Short-Arm.
Inconsistent Spelling: Carados, Karadoc, Karados.
One-Steve Limit: Defied as there seem to be a number of Caradocs or Caradoses in the Romances, sometimes father and son, sometimes unrelated, sometimes heroic, sometimes villainous, making it confusing.

Galeschin

Depending on the Author: Yet another nephew of Arthur, the son of King Nentres of Garlot and one of Arthur's less famous sisters. Sometimes his mother is named Elaine, sometimes not.
Inconsistent Spelling: May or may not be the same person as "Galvariun", who appears in one of the earliest Arthurian artworks alongside "Galvagin" (Gawain), possibly his cousin.

Sagramore

The Berserker: Slipped into a mad frenzy when he was fighting.
Cain and Abel: Some stories have him raised for several years alongside Mordred as a stepbrother. Mordred still kills him at Camlann.
Composite Character: A 16th century Portuguese novel Triunfos de Sagramor combines him with the legendary king Constantine III. "Sagramore Constantino" is Arthur's son-in-law and heir, who forms a new Round Table.
Fighting Your Friend: A fragmentary story finds him forced into a fight with Gawain.
Hot-Blooded: One of his epithets is "The Impetuous" or "The Hotheaded".
Inconsistent Spelling: Sagramor, Sagremor, Saigremor.
Post-Victory Collapse: Suffered from nasty epileptic fits on occasion, and his berserker rages left him exhausted, suffering from migraines, and starving. Sir Kay, nice guy that he is, nicknamed him "Morte Jeune" ("Dead youth") as a result.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Son of the King of Hungary and the daughter of the Eastern Roman Emperor, heir to the throne of Constantinople and when his father dies, his mother remarries another king.
The Worf Effect: Like Sir Kay, he had a reputation as a fierce warrior, but tended to get kicked around to show off other peoples' skills.

Pelleas

Black-and-White Insanity: In Idylls of the King, he learns that Ettard, whom he loved, had slept with Gawain, whom he'd trusted, and laments that he'd held Ettard to be as pure as Guinevere. Percivale lets him in on the world's worst-kept secret, and learning that the Knights of the Round table were not perfect examples of chivalry and that his idealized Queen Guinevere was an adulteress slides the cheese right off Pelleas's cracker.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: In Idylls, he starts calling himself the Red Knight and dressing appropriately after he snaps.
Damned by Faint Praise: After Gawain leads her to believe he killed Pelleas, Ettard says it's a shame because he was a good knight...and that she had hated him more than anyone because he wouldn't leave her alone.
Death by Despair: After discovering that Gawain had slept with Ettard in spite of agreeing to be a go-between between them, he went home, fell into bed and said that he refused to get out until he died, telling his servants to give his heart in between two silver dishes to Ettard. Since he showed up later, he was probably just being a Drama Queen.
Dogged Nice Guy: Well, he saw himself this way, and some versions of the story do have Ettard eventually reciprocating his advances.
Driven to Madness: In Tennyson's Idylls of the King he's a pure-hearted but naive knight whose mistreatment at Ettard's hands and discovery of Queen Guinevere's adultery on the same day drive him insane.
Faking the Dead: Gawain helped him cook up a plan where Gawain would claim to have killed him and take his armor to Ettard, whereupon...it's not really clear. Presumably, he thought she'd realize her true feelings for him if she thought he was dead. The plan fell apart when a)she was thrilled to see him out of her life and b) Gawain decided he wanted a piece of that sweet, sweet Ettard action for himself, and got it.
Face–Heel Turn In Idylls he goes from the most innocent knight left at the Round Table to the leader of a debauched criminal gang meant as a direct insult to it.
I Surrender, Suckers: A very weird, um, inversion? Every single day, Ettard would send ten knights to try and drive him away. Pelleas would thrash them, then force them to "capture" him and take him into Ettard's presence, just long enough for her to stick him in a cell overnight and kick him out in the morning.
Legion of Doom: In Idylls, after his Face–Heel Turn, he starts his own mocking version of the Round Table with criminals and harlots, noting that at least the members his court have no pretense as to their true natures.
One-Man Army: Beat sixty knights in a tournament in order to give Ettard the jousting crown as a gesture of love (she laughed in his face and told him to step off), and regularly beat up ten knights single-handedly.
Second Love: With Nimue, and Nimue's second love after Merlin.
Self-Proclaimed Love Interest: To Ettard, who wasn't remotely interested.
Single-Target Sexuality: Malory mentions that there were much more attractive women at the tournament, who would have happily accepted Pelleas' crown and attentions, but he only had eyes for Ettard. Nimue fixed that, and how.
Stalker with a Crush: Parked himself on Ettard's lands and refused to go away, no matter how often he was rebuffed.
Stay in the Kitchen: Nimue apparently kept him on a pretty tight leash, since he only shows up a couple of times after they get together. It's explicitly mentioned that this keeps him from getting killed like almost every other knight in the end, however.
Tragic Villain: In Idylls. It's not his fault he got knighted just when corruption was smothering what chivalric ideals Camelot had left.
Unrequited Love Switcheroo: He eventually caught Nimue's eye and she cast a spell to turn all his love for Ettard into hate and all Ettard's hate for him into love. He ended up with Nimue, and Ettard suffered a Death by Despair. All's well that ends...never mind.
What the Hell, Hero?: After discovering Gawain and Ettard in bed together, he laid his sword across their necks while they were asleep and went back home.

Galehaut

A half-giant knight that became subservient to Arthur after giving up on waging war against him for the sake of Lancelot.

Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In one version of the tale, instead of an extremely close friend of Lancelot's, he is portrayed as a distant frenemy of sorts.
Adapted Out: He is one of the lesser known knights and is often left out of the stories in adaptations. In fact, he is so little known a few people assume his name Galehaut is actually just another pronunciation of Galahad's name and ignore the character entirely.
Ambiguously Gay: His relationship with Lancelot was certainly close and whether they were ever lovers, if Galehaut held an unrequited love for Lancelot or were in fact just friends is a matter of debate between academics to this day.
The Good King: He ruled several lands, but as far as it is known, he was very well liked by his people.
Heel–Face Turn: Galehaut was an opponent of Arthur, and almost in fact defeated him up until being so enchanted by Lancelot he gave up the fight and sided with Arthur to be closer to him. May or may not be a case of Love Redeems, again based on whether his interest in Lancelot was platonic or romantic.
Half-Human Hybrid: Galehaut was a hulkling man that could tower over his opponents due to his mother being a giant.
Love at First Sight: Ambiguously, but seeing Lancelot in the battlefield was enough for him to be so mesmerized by him he called off the war and became and ally of Arthur's.
Red Baron: He was known as "The Uncrowned King", due to his vast lands and military force, but refused to be acknowledged as a king until he got Arthur's lands.
Shipper on Deck: In some variations of the story, he helps Lancelot's affair with Guinevere. Might count as I Want My Beloved to Be Happy, if one subscribes to the idea that Galehaut was in love with Lancelot.

Alexander the Orphan

Appears in Palamedes, Prose Tristan, Prophecies of Merlin, and Le Morte d'Arthur.

Celibate Hero: He rejected Morgan Le Fay's advances. Later subverted when he married Alice the Fair Pilgrim.
Killed Off for Real: The details vary as to whether he was killed by a minor knight or an assassin hired by King Mark, but regardless he didn't live to either go on the Grail quest nor the end of Arthur's reign.
Revenge: Against Mark for killing Prince Bodwyne, his father and Mark's younger brother.
Tragic Keepsake: The blood-soaked shirt his father wore when he was killed.

Tor

Child by Rape: Pellinore begot him on Vayshoure "half by force", which is a bit ambiguous.
Chocolate Baby: Tall and handsome unlike his thirteen(!) half-brothers and alleged father, Aries.
Heroic Bastard: Begotten by King Pellinore on the wife of a cowherd before her marriage.
The Quiet One: "[...] For I have seen him proved, but he saith little and he doth much more".
Retcon: Originally the son of King Aries, later retconned into the illegitimate son of Pellinore. Poor Aries got turned into a cowherd!
Royals Who Actually Do Something: (Illegitimate) son of Pellinore, or legitimate son of King Aries.

Ironside

Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Red shield, red armor, red weapons, and red harness.
Defeat Means Friendship: He was initially an opponent of the Round Table, but after he was defeated by Sir Gareth he later joined the Round Table himself.
Easily Forgiven: Sure, he murdered forty knights, hanging them from a tree so they wouldn't be allowed to die in honorable combat, but he was doing it to fulfill his promise to a lady, so it's fine.
I Have You Now, My Pretty: He kidnapped the princess of Lyonesse back when he was an adversary of the knights, requiring Sir Gareth to go on a quest to save her from him.
Red Baron: "The Red Knight of the Red Launds".
Super-Strength: Like Gawain, he grows more powerful as the day passes, until at noon he has the strength of seven men. Unlike Gawain, it's not mentioned if this is tied to the sun itself.
Token Evil Teammate: Known for his sadistic and cruel temperament in some tales (read the part where he murdered forty knights), but nevertheless brought into Arthur's court and become a knight of the Round Table.

Marrok

Expy: He is probably one to the title character of the earlier Bisclavret by Marie de France, and/or that of the lesser-known Biclarel and/or Melion by anonymous authors, which are likely influenced by Bisclavret too (and all three may come from a common source), but their settings are explicitly Arthurian unlike it.
One-Scene Wonder: In the medieval texts, Marrok only appears in Le Morte d'Arthur and is mentioned only twice. Once as a name, and then much later Malory says that Marrok "was betrayed by his wife, for she made him seven years a werewolf." And that's all he says about him. Yes, seriously!
Our Werewolves Are Different: Based on the precedents, Malory probably pictured Marrok as a man who becomes a wolf, not a Wolf Man.
- Bisclavret and Biclarel automatically change into a wolf for a few days every month, and if they can't change back into their clothes after that, they stay that way indefinitely. So their wives steal their clothes and get together with another man.
- Melion transforms into a wolf at will with a magic ring that another person has to touch his body with. So his wife transforms him and runs away with another man, keeping the ring.
Whole-Plot Reference: Marrok's untold story was told by an early 20th century author borrowing wholesale from Bisclavret.

Morien

Amazing Technicolor Population: His skin is described as so black ("blacker than soot or pitch") that his teeth stand out sharply in contrast.
Asskicking Leads to Leadership: After he brings Aglovale back to his kingdom, a group of nobles refuse them entry, seeking to keep his heritage for themselves. Morien proceeds to slaughter all fifteen of them, and the other nobles fall into line.
Badass Boast: "For what do ye take me? Am I a lesser or a weaker man than either of ye that Sir Gawain must needs ride with me? I will not have it so. There is no knight so bold but I dare well withstand him. I know well what is unfitting. Now say whither ye will betake ye, and send me what road ye will; I will dare the venture, be it never so perilous. By my knighthood, and by all who follow Christendom, I shall adventure alone, and take that which may chance."
The Big Guy: Taller than any other knight, and described as practically superhuman in strength and fighting skill.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Black Moorish armor and black shield.
Cool Horse: The text points this out several times. Coming from Moorish lands, it's not surprising.
Disappeared Dad: Though in Aglovale's defense, he probably didn't know his lover was pregnant.
Expy: Of Feirefiz from Parzival, though a rather loose one.
Flawless Token: The whole story is basically the "Morien is Better Than Everyone Show."
Heroic Bastard: Son of Aglovale and a Moorish princess (later queen).
Inconsistent Spelling: Moriaen, Moriaan.
Kid Hero: His adventure takes place when he's about fourteen.
One-Man Army: Takes on a small army of armed, armored fighters to rescue Gawain, killing them by twos and threes and never getting a scratch.
One-Shot Character: He only appears in an eponymous Dutch romance by an anonymous author or authors and nowhere else, in contrast to the likes of Palamedes. People unaware of this have sometimes trotted him out as an example of non-white Arthurian characters, when really Palamedes is the best example.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Although he and his mother were disinherited upon his birth, until Aglovale marries her.
Scary Black Man: One boatman practically freezes up and wets his pants upon seeing Morien. Sir Gariet basically says: "Hey, moron, do your job or he's not going to be the one who kills you."

Calogrenant/Colgrevance

Butt-Monkey: Whenever he appears in surviving works, he tends to get the short end of the stick in some way, ever since Chretien's Ywain where the titular hero first sets out to avenge his loss. He appears mainly to get beaten in jousts, except that one time he beat Mordred but that time he was transformed into a woman so it's comic relief, and the varying versions of his death are inglorious.
Continuity Snarl: Possibly. Malory has a knight named Colgrevance die at different times, and the earlier instance is from the Vulgate Cycle where he's called Calogrenant. In that, he's killed by Lionel. Later, Colgrevance appears as one of the guys with Mordred and Agravaine as they catch Lancelot and Guinevere together. Lancelot is without his armor and only has his sword while the others are all armored up. Colgrevance is the first to enter the room, and Lancelot kills him and puts on his armor before fighting off the rest.
Decomposite Character: Theorized by some scholars to derive from Kay, as the name "Calogrenant" may come from "Cai lo grenant", "Cai the grumbler".
Gender Bender: In the romance Claris et Laris, Calogrenant is temporarily transformed into a woman after he passes through a castle enchanted to transform the passerby into the form of the last person they saw. In his case he had last passed by a beautiful maiden. When the enchantment takes hold, her armor is too big for her and she soon changes into a dress. Mordred finds her like this and puts the moves on her, not knowing who she really is. Eventually he tries to take her by force, but she throws him off his own horse and gets away. She turns back to a man once she sees the three greatest knights in the land, who are Gawain and the titular Claris and Laris.
Inconsistent Spelling: Colgrevance or Colgrevaunce in Malory, Calogrenant or Kalogrenant in older French works like Ywain (where he's Ywain's cousin) and the Vulgate Cycle. It's not clear if Malory's sources had the different names for two different knights with different deaths, hence they're lumped here together.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
- Calogrenant/Colgrevance is killed after he tries to save Bors from being killed by Bors's own brother Lionel.
- Technically speaking, trying to expose Lancelot and Guinevere's affair was a morally-correct thing to do, which got him killed. Um, again.

Cador

See "Other Characters" below; originally a Duke, then upgraded to a Round Table knight, but not quite becoming a full-fledged Decomposite Character.

Constantine of Cornwall

The man who succeeded Arthur. Constantine has had an odd journey through the Matter of Britain's development. He is one of the few characters who is definitively historical, as he is the first figure denounced as a tyrant by Gildas in De Excidio, where among other crimes he is accussed of killing two royal youths while they were hiding in a church while disguised as a priest. Geoffrey of Monmouth made him Arthur's kinsman and successor (likely conflating Gildas's Constantine of Dumnonia with a figure the Welsh Annals call Constantine, King of Britain) and made those two youths the sons of Mordred. Geoffrey is also the oldest source to state that Constantine was the son of Cador. As the Romances focused on Arthur's reign specifically (in contrast to Monmouth's focus on a centuries' long history) Constantine fell out of focus, but Malory includes him in the Round Table and describes him as a good king.

Adaptational Heroism: Although one of Gildas's five tyrants, one would be hard pressed to find that in later works depicting him. In Gildas's version, he's an oathbreaker and profaner who kills two boys - in sight of their mother! - while disguised as an abbot in a church. Monmouth turns this from a sacrilegious act of barbarity into an act of desperation by making those two the sons of Mordred and aging them up to be military threats against Constantine. Later works not only shift their deaths from a church to the battlefield, but give the killing blows to Lancelot instead, basically washing Constantine clean of any crimes and making him a good king trying to keep Arthur's kingdom alive.
Adapted Out: He does not appear in the Vulgate at all. This is undone by Malory.
The Alcoholic: Accused of enjoying the "bitter Sodomitical vine" by Gildas.
Ambiguous Situation: Geoffrey says he is the son of Duke Cador of Cornwall and both are kinsmen of Arthur in an unclear way. One Welsh genealogy tries to reconcile this by making Uther Pendragon and Erbin of Dumnonia (Constantine's traditional great-grandfather) brothers, which would make Constantine Arthur's first cousin twice removed.
Animal Motifs: Lions, which he shares with Aurelius Conanus.
Breakout Character: Of the Gildesian five tyrants he is this for the Romances as Maelgwn is for Welsh tradition.
Composite Character: There are at least three Constantines recorded in this time period. One is the tyrant castigated by Gildas, one (nicknamed "Custennin Corneu" or Constantine of Cornwall in Welsh) is listed as the father of either Erbin or Gereint in most of the Welsh Genealogies, depending on the specific genealogy (most scholars favor making him Erbin's father as that is the more consistent depiction), one is named as "King of Britain" (actually Prydyn, a region in what is now Scotland) in the Annales Cambriae, are there is a Cornish folk hero and saint named King Constantine who may be the tyrant, Custennin Corneu, or an otherwise forgotten figure of the same name. Geoffrey seems to have conflated the tyrant, the King of "Britain", and possibly the folk saint into a single figure, although the tyrant provides the bulk of the character.
Demoted to Extra: The Romances' focus on Arthur's reign means the guy who succeeded Arthur doesn't get much screentime in them, often appearing late if at all, with many adaptations having Arthur die with no heir whatsoever. His one big act - the deaths of Mordred's sons - being co-opted by Lancelot doesn't help.
Family Theme Naming: According to Geoffrey, Arthur's grandfather was also named Constantine, and they're all distantly related to the Roman Emperor Constantine himself.
He's Just Hiding: Gildas implies that after killing the youths Constantine faked his death and went into hiding - the second half of his polemic against the king is a call for him to come out of hiding and repent.
Historical Domain Character: He appears in the one primary source we have of the period.
Laser-Guided Karma: While Monmouth presents Constantine's crime in more a sympathetic light, it is still a violation of holy sanctuary, and Constantine winds up killed by his nephew Conan (Monmouth's interpretation of Gildas's second tyrant Aurelius Conanus).
Last of His Kind: The last Round Table Knight, with all others having died, betrayed Arthur, or retired to holy hermitage after killing the ones who betrayed Arthur.
Related in the Adaptation: The Welsh translations make him grandson of Gorlois, which gives a layer of Irony to him succeeding Arthur.
Would Hurt a Child: Slew two noble youths in a church, in sight of their mother, disguised as an abbott.

Evil Knights

Accalon

Appears in the Post-Vulgate Merlin and Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.

Killed Off for Real: By Arthur.
Inconsistent Spelling: Accolon.
Unwitting Pawn: Of his lover, Morgan Le Fay, in an attempt to have her half-brother King Arthur killed.
Worthy Opponent: Arthur considered him this, and Sir Accalon thought the same in turn, when the former apologized for having mortally wounded the latter. Arthur had the Gaulish Knight buried with honors at St. Stephen's Church in Camelot. (At least in versions of the story that don't have Arthur sending his body back to Morgan.)

Breuse Sans Pitie

Car Fu: Rather, Horse Fu. Liked to ride over unhorsed knights, and actually ran over Gawain twenty times in an effort to kill him.
Combat Pragmatist: No dirty trick is below him.
For the Evulz: Apparently the closest thing to a motive he's got.
Joker Immunity: One of Malory's most frequently used villains, always popping up somewhere to steal, rape, or murder. In a genre where the villain is usually dispatched very quickly, he never gets caught or killed; the best the heroes manage is to run him off for a while.
Wounded Gazelle Gambit: When fleeing from a fight, he would often enlist aid from others by claiming that he was an innocent being pursued by Breuse Sans Pitie. (It was often hard to tell which knight was which with the armour.)

The Brown Knight Without Pity

Damsel in Distress: Liked to kill knights and take their ladies back to his castle.
Harem Seeker: Had a collection of about thirty damsels before Gareth killed him.
Only Known by Their Nickname: Probably not the same character as Breuse Sans Pitie, since he actually got killed.

Garlon of Listineise

Black Sheep: Descendant of Joseph of Arimathea and brother to both King Pellam, the most worshipful man in the land, and King Pellinore, one of Arthur's greatest allies. Sheep don't get much blacker than this serial killer.
Bullying a Dragon: As Balin's sizing him up, wondering whether or not to kill him in the middle of Pellam's party, Garlon backhands him, asks him what he's looking at, and tells him to eat and do whatever he came there for. Okey-doke.
Even Evil Can Be Loved: King Pellam loved him enough to try to avenge him.
Famous Ancestor: Joseph of Arimathea.
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Stabbed Sir Herlews le Berbeus with his lance so hard that it broke, and continued using it as a truncheon afterward. Sir Balin used said truncheon to return the favor.
Invisibility: Somehow he had this power.
Magic Knight: He can turn invisible and inflict a Wound That Will Not Heal.
No Kill like Overkill: Balin lops off his head and stabs him with his own broken lance.
Off with His Head!: Balin chops his head off right in the middle of one of Pellam's banquets.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Brother of Kings Pellam and Pellinore.
Serial Killer: Liked to go around murdering people while invisible, including two knights.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In order to avenge him, King Pellam attacks Balin when he is a guest in his castle, forcing Balin to use the Spear of Destiny to protect himself, striking the Dolorous Stroke that destroys Pellam's castle and kingdom and renders Pellam crippled.
Wound That Will Not Heal: Somehow inflicted a wound on a lords's son that wouldn't heal unless he received Garlon's blood. Thanks, Balin! Of course then backlash from the Dolorous Stroke collapsed the castle upon the lord and killed him. Oh, and wiped out his neighboring kingdom, including his son. No thanks, Balin!

Meliagrant

The son of Bagdemagus of Gorre, and the most infamous of Guinevere's abductors.

All Love Is Unrequited: For Guinevere.
Attempted Rape: Fortunately Bagdemagus stopped him before he could do the deed.
Face–Heel Turn: Once a knight of the Round Table, held in high enough regard by Arthur to have been gifted a castle.
Know When to Fold 'Em: Tried to surrender when it was clear how badly Lancelot had him outclassed in combat. Lancelot didn't oblige, although he did offer to take part of his armor off and tie his left hand behind his back. It didn't help.
Inconsistent Spelling: Meliagrance, Meliagant, Maleagant, etc. Appears as "Malagant" in First Knight. Melwas in Celtic, at which point Arthur himself is the one who rescues Gwenhwyfar instead of the later Lancelot.
Love Makes You Evil: Was considered "a good man of great might" until he finally snapped and kidnapped the queen.
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Son of King Bagdemagus.
Trap Door: Used one in his castle to try and capture Lancelot instead of fighting him.
Unknown Rival: Barely a blip on Lancelot's radar until the aforementioned kidnapping.

The Sons of Mordred

From Geoffrey of Monmouth on tradition has granted Mordred two sons who attempt to take up their father's cause after Camlann. One is always named Melehan or a variation thereof, but the other has for some reason never been given a name in tradition. Both of them quickly fail and are killed for their attempt.

Demoted to Extra: Rarely appear, if at all, in modern works, which tend to depict Mordred as too young to have adult sons. This is likely partly due to them being Adapted Out in Malory's work, which instead ends with a denouement where Lancelot makes peace with Guenevere.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Devotedly loyal to their father.
Dies Differently In The Adaptation: Monmouth follows Gildas's story of them being killed in a church via treachery by Constantine, although he puts them in two different churches. From the Vulgate on they are instead killed in battle by Lancelot and Bors (Constantine having been Adapted Out by the Vulgate and only put back in by Malory).
Hero Killer: Melehan kills Sir Lionel at the Battle of Winchester, after which Bors kills him in turn.
Historical Domain Character: According to Monmouth they were the two noble youths Gildas accuses Constantine of killing in a church.
Historical Villain Upgrade: What little Gildas tells us about them makes it clear, in Gildas's worldview at least, that Constantine was in the wrong for killing them, and his work heavily implies they were literal children. In Monmouth they're rebels against the rightful king Constantine and their deaths were an act of political necessity, while in the Romances they continue their father's work in destroying Arthur's realm and thus deserving of their fates.
Inconsistent Spelling: The elder brother is variously named Melehan, Melian, Meleon, Melou, etc.
No Name Given: Melehan's brother has never been given a name by any of the Romances. In modern works he is sometimes named Melou, which is really just one variation of Melehan.

Nabon Le Noire

Curb-Stomp Battle: Handily killed every one of his opponents in the below-mentioned tournament, until Tristram showed up.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Held a tournament in honor of his newly-knighted son.
Hero Killer: He slew several of Arthur's knights.
Invulnerable Horses: Averted. Nabon often targeted his opponent's steed.
Our Giants Are Bigger: "A great mighty giant."
Royals Who Actually Do Something: Rules the Isle of Servage.
You Kill It, You Bought It: Tristram takes over the Isle of Servage after killing him, and gives it to Segwarides.

Pinel Le Savage

A cousin of Lamorak who was envious of Gawain, which turned to pure hatred when Gawain killed his cousin.

Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear if he's related to Lamorak on his father's side (and thus descended from the Grail Kings) or his mother's side.
Dirty Coward: Tried to poison Gawain to avenge Lamorak, rather than face him in combat, laid low and let the Queen take the blame, then ran back to his country when Nimue revealed the truth.
Karma Houdini: Apparently never received punishment for his treachery.
You Killed My Father: Gawain killed his cousin, which is why he tried to poison Gawain, though envy may have played a part as well.

Fair Ladies

Morgause

Adaptation Name Change: The "stages" of her evolution as one of Arthur's sisters, inasmuch as her appearances or mentions can be considered to be that of the same character, can be broadly traced by her name going from "Gwyar" to "Anna" up to "Morgause".
Adaptational Villainy: Modern writers tend to make her a scheming villainess, often by making her aware of her relationship with Arthur when she sleeps with him, or by combining her with Morgan Le Fay. Originally, after she emerged as a distinct character, she seems to have been a generous and friendly person. Very friendly.
- She is already semi-villainous in Le Morte d'Arthur, where she was sent to Arthur's court to spy on him on behalf of her husband Lot (who was still Arthur's enemy), and it is ambiguous whether she knew they were related when she slept with him (Igraine recognizes Arthur as her son only later, but Merlin had already explained his parentage to the Rebel Kings).
- This is especially so regarding her as a mother, often serving as Mordred’s (and if given more spotlight, Agravain’s, as well as Gawain’s or Gaheris’ depending on how they’re portrayed) Freudian Excuse to make him more sympathetic and his actions more understandable (e.g. T.H. White, who wrote her as a Monster). While her parenting is rarely elaborated on, in the Vulgate at least she is in fact depicted as quite a loving, sweet, if firm, mother, doting over baby Mordred and pushing her other sons to leave the nest and make something of their lives at Arthur’s court, providing them all the necessary equipment they need.
- In her earliest appearance as Mordred's mother, as "Anna" instead of Morgause, there is no hint of incest with Arthur. In her probably even older earliest appearance as Gawain's mother, as "Gwyar", there is even no hint of her being related to Mordred.
Brother–Sister Incest: Though neither she nor Arthur were aware of it at the time.
Composite Character: Despite usually coexisting with Morgan, she may also get some of her "dark sorceress" traits, though less pronounced/powerful.
Decomposite Character: Some scholars suggest that she and Morgan Le Fay were the same character until some scribe made a translation error and accidentally split them into two separate characters, making the fact that she’s often conflated with Morgan rather appropriate. Though the argument against this is Geoffrey treating "Anna" and "Morgen" as distinct figures in separate works early on, also mentioning only one but not the other within the same work.
Depending on the Writer: Her most famous incarnation as "Morgause" is a daughter of Igraine and Gorlois, thus one of Arthur's elder half-sisters, but her earlier incarnation as "Anna" is the daughter of Igraine and Uther and the younger full sister of Arthur. But then Geoffrey, the first source for "Anna", contradicts himself and also says she's the sister of Uther and his brother Aurelius, making her Arthur's aunt - though in the end he seems to revert to 'sister' by calling her sons by Lot i.e. Gawain and Mordred as Arthur's nephews instead of cousins.
Evil Matriarch: More of a modern spin on her regarding her relationship with her sons, especially Mordred, as mentioned.
Honey Trap: Malory states that Lot sent her over to Arthur's court in this capacity.
Inconsistent Spelling: Margawse, Morgawse, Margause, Bellicent, Orcades...
- Orcades is notable for being the Latin name for the Orkney islands, which she and her family were eventually associated with. It is suggested that further mutation resulted in Morcades and ultimately Morgause, much like how her husband Lot's name is also theorized to have originated from his other (and probably original) realm of Lothian.
- In Geoffrey of Monmouth, Arthur's sister is just called Anna. (She does nothing, but later writers greatly expanded her role) Since Morgan is sometimes spelled Morgana this may have added to the confusion.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: In the older Welsh material, Arthur's sister is named Gwyar, which means "bloodshed".
Out with a Bang: Her son Gaheris, incensed at seeing her in bed with the son of Pellinore, Lamorak, (who killed Lot, the Orkney brothers' father), lopped her head off.
Satellite Character: In her incarnation as "Anna", at least as far as Geoffrey goes, she's just there to be the sister of Arthur and the wife of Lot and mother of Gawain and Mordred. Let alone her incarnation as "Gwyar", of which nothing much is known despite her enigmatic gory name.
Silver Vixen: After five sons and a number of daughters, she still had enough of it goin' on to bed Sir Lamorak, who was at least twenty years younger than her.
Surprise Incest: Some versions have her sleep with Arthur, unaware that he's her half-brother.
Unholy Matrimony: In versions that play up her and Lot's villainy, often also combining her with Morgan.
Villainous Incest: In the variations where she's aware of her relation to Arthur.

Morgan(a) Le Fay

Adaptational Sympathy: She gets this treatment a lot in later adaptations of the Arthurian Legend. In the earlier stories and their adaptations, she tends to be presented as just a power-hungry sorceress willing to do anything to destroy her half-brother Arthur, sometimes including tricking him into sleeping with her to conceive Mordred and raising him to be Arthur's downfall. Interestingly, in the earliest versions of the Arthurian Legend Morgan wasn't a villain, but she tends to be made a Composite Character with her and Arthur's other sister, the treacherous Morgause, so it could be argued the more sympathetic portrayals are Truer to the Text.
Arch-Enemy: Guinevere's, actually. After a few unsuccessful attacks on Arthur, Morgan mostly devoted herself to trying to reveal Lancelot and Guinevere's affair.
Composite Character:
- Many adaptations fuse her with Morgause, resulting in her being the mother of Mordred and sometimes Gawain and his other brothers too. Morgause is also called Anna, lending herself to this.
- Possibly with another sister, a illegitimate half-sister. The Vulgate Merlin made her a bastard daughter of Igraine(?) in contrast to King Lot's wife i.e. Morgause as the legitimate daughter of Igraine and the Duke of Cornwall (Gorlois), but in the Post-Vulgate onward this was rolled back with Morgan being a legitimate daughter as well. It is unclear if this originally came from Robert de Boron's Merlin, as some manuscripts and thus editions/translations differ in details, with some having three sisters - Morgause as the oldest, Morgan as the youngest and a middle sister unfortunately named Batarde - while others just have two with Morgan as the "batarde". At least this means at some point, Morgan was envisioned as alternately a Bastard Bastard or Heroic Bastard depending on her role, but keeping her parentage legitimate ensured that she was connected to Arthur by blood on his mother's side, instead of perhaps just marriage indirectly.
Depending on the Writer: In her earliest appearance, Geoffrey's Life of Merlin, "Morgen" was the chief of the healers of Avalon. Later medieval writers made her a villain. Some modern writers, most famously Marion Zimmer Bradley, have written of her sympathetically. Then there's the mess of her specific family ties by blood and marriage, but she eventually became established as one of Arthur's two maternal half-sisters. But then there's a trend in modern works to make her Arthur's paternal half or full sister, Uther's daughter, and thus give her the "Pendragon" title too.
Evil Matriarch: Many modern versions make her this to Mordred, whose mother is strictly Arthur's other sister in the medieval literature.
Evil Sorceress: The Trope Codifier in medieval literature, as it is her main role in the Arthurian mythos. Said to have learned magic in a nunnery where she was shunted off for years.
Gender-Blender Name: Both her original name and one of its evolved forms. The form "Morgan" is also a masculine name, but to split hairs, it's actually a male-only name with different origins which just evolved to look identical to the feminine Morgan. The original name for the female magical character in the sources is Old Welsh "Morgen", but it itself qualifies as gender-neutral because it's sometimes found as a masculine name in other (non-Arthurian) contexts. Morgan = Morgen probably means "sea-born", from the even more ancient Celtic "Morigenos" and/or "Morigena".
Green-Eyed Monster: Apart from the infidelity, part of Morgan's hatred for Guinevere may have stemmed from the fact that she herself wanted to sleep with Lancelot.
Heel–Face Turn: In time she seems to have mellowed out and gotten along well with Arthur, to the point of letting him visit her castle for a week. Of course she still tried to convince him of Guinevere's unfaithfulness, but he didn't believe her.
Hot Witch: Invariably described/depicted as very beautiful.
Inconsistent Spelling: Morgen, Morgan, Morgana, Morganna, Morgane, Morgaine, Morgue, etc. Morgen is the oldest form in old Welsh and, despite appearances, has nothing to do with the masculine name Morgan (as in Morgan Freeman) which derives from old Welsh "Morcant". The vowel shifts and additions are a result of being filtered (and more explicitly feminized) through French and other languages. Despite popular identification, it also has (sadly) nothing to do with Morrigan from Irish mythology.
- A strange consequence of this is her seemingly undergoing a Gender Flip due to language. Erec and Enide (French) and Geraint and Enid (Welsh) both mention a Morgan who is a healer but the Welsh "Morgan Tud" is male. Since Morgan Tud is only mentioned here and nowhere else, most scholars think Tud is equivalent to Fay (akin to Breton "Tuth", Irish "Tuath") and the Welsh author just took Morgan for the exclusively male name it was in Welsh instead of changing it to Morgen (which technically could go both ways).
  - Complicating matters is that "Morgan Tud" may alternately be a possible corruption of the male name "Morgetiud" (the distant ancestor of "Meredith", itself a male name until recently), possibly the original name of a male figure distinct from the female healer of Avalon (or else split off from her). In Erec and Enide, Morgan le Fay is mentioned as Arthur's sister who made a wondrous healing salve that Arthur gives to Erec. In Geraint and Enid, "Morgan Tud" is Arthur's court physician who tends to Geraint personally and he doesn't seem to be related to Arthur.
Lady of Black Magic: She's a potent witch, and almost always portrayed as a beautiful lady garbed in regal dresses.
Legion of Doom: At one point King Mark appeals to her to get a bunch of evil sorcerers and known evil knights together in order to ravage Arthur's kingdom.
The Magnificent: "Le Fay" means "the Fairy". It's garbled French with the wrong gender thanks to Malory — the correct form would be "la Fée".
Murder Is the Best Solution: Tried to kill her husband King Uriens, but was stopped by their son Yvain.
Related in the Adaptation:
- Possibly not Arthur's sister at first. In her first traceable appearance in written sources (Geoffrey of Monmouth's "Life of Merlin"), she's not explicitly said to be related to Arthur. But within a decade or two, she's already stated to be his sister in such sources (seemingly predating the chivalric romances where she's his sister, and eventually his evil sister) so one can't discount the existence of an underlying oral tradition which said they were related.
  - An early writer from around this time, Gerald of Wales (who gives the earliest account of the discovery of Arthur's purported tomb at Glastonbury, which he equates with Avalon) says that she is related by blood to Arthur, though he doesn't say sister specifically. He also says that Morgan was a mere human noblewoman who ruled the area, and that later legend made her out to be a fairy-goddess.
- Her husband and son, King Uriens and Sir Yvain, are definitely only associated with her later. In her earliest romance appearances she's specifically unmarried compared to her sisters. In Yvain's first appearance in the chivalric romances, she heals him but she's not said to be his mother. Before that, Uriens first appears in Geoffrey's "History of the Kings of Britain" as a brother of King Lot, the husband of Arthur's sister Anna (later identified with Morgause), and no other sisters or brothers-in-law of Arthur are specified at this point. But in later works, Uriens is said to have married another sister of Arthur, who was eventually identified with Morgan. Uriens and Yvain are most likely based upon real warlords, Urien of Rheged and his son Owain, but they lived after Arthur's possible time period.
- Before her association with King Uriens as his wife, her husband was sometimes instead said to be King Nentres, but this didn't stick and Nentres is both earlier and later said to have married another of her sisters.
Villainesses Want Heroes: She was in love with Lancelot, who spurned her advances due to his devotion to Guinevere.
Yandere: Imprisons poor Lancelot several times, with her attempts to seduce him only, understandably, serving to make her even more of an Abhorrent Admirer in his mind.

Nimue/Nyneve/Viviane/The Lady of the Lake

See The Lady of the Lake.

Iseult the Fair

Arranged Marriage: With King Mark of Cornwall.
Death by Despair: After Tristan's death she also dies because of grief.
Dude Magnet: There's a lot of guys who become attracted to her, mainly so they can have a conflict with Tristan about her.
Exact Words: A Welsh version of the Tristan and Iseult tale possibly older than the romances avoids the tragedy and lets everyone live. Here Arthur himself meditates between Drystan and March, and rules that one of them shall have Esyllt while trees have leaves and the other while trees are leafless. March chooses the time without leaves. Esyllt then invokes holly, ivy and yew as evergreen trees to stay with Drystan forever.
Guile Hero: Just like her lover, she often has to use her wits to keep her adultery secret.
Healing Hands: She is the only one who can heal Tristan when he gets fatally poisoned.
Inconsistent Spelling: There are tons of alternate spellings for her; like Isolt, Isolde and Isolda just to name a few.

Iseult of the White Hands

Green-Eyed Monster: Becomes jealous of the other Iseult when she learns of Tristan's love for her, leading her to kill Tristan through lying.
One-Steve Limit: Defied; having the same name as another character is the reason she becomes Tristan's wife, and thus a character in the story, in the first place.
Replacement Goldfish: Tristan marries her because she has the same name as his lover.
Til Murder Do Us Part: She indirectly murders Tristan by claiming that Iseult the Fair isn't coming to heal him, causing him to give in to despair and succumb to his poison just as Iseult arrives to cure him.

Ettard of Arroy

Adaptational Jerkass: In Tennyson's Idylls, she deliberately leads Pelleas on, so he'll win circlet for her in the tournament. She does realize she's in love with him eventually...after driving him away for the last time by sleeping with Gawain, and apparently lives in misery for the rest of her days. But she doesn't die of it, at least..
Butt-Monkey: So one day you decide to go to a tournament, and this creepy guy who beat sixty knights proclaims his love for you out of nowhere. You tell him where to get off, and he decides to follow you home instead. When you send people to get rid of him, he uses it as an excuse to meet you in person. Over and over. Finally, a knight you're actually into tells you he's killed your stalker, bringing his armor as proof. You sleep with him out of gratitude, but whoopsie, he was deceiving you — you find this out because your stalker sneaks into your room and leaves his sword lying across your throat while you're asleep. Good morning! But hey, it looks you're rid of him at last...until some lady shows up on your doorstep and calls you out for treating your stalker badly. And then she casts a spell to make you fall for him and make him hate you. And then you die.
Inconsistent Spelling: Ettarre, Ettarde
Love at First Sight: Feels this for Gawaine, possibly partly due to gratitude for his claimed killing of Pelleas.
Pride: Some version have her spurning Pelleas because of his low birth.
So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Interestingly, Malory says she's apparently not that beautiful, but considering what her looks get her, it fits.
Their First Time: Some versions have her tryst with Gawaine be the mutual loss of their virginity.
Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Nimue forces one upon her by turning all her hatred for Pelleas into love and all his love for her into hatred. In some versions she doesn't have to do the latter, as Pelleas finally gets the message, just a bit too late.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In Idylls, her actions are the start of Pelleas's downward spiral into madness.

Igraine

The mother of King Arthur and wife of Uther Pendragon. She was originally the wife of Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall, and married Uther after her first husband's death. Igraine is also often depicted as the mother of Morgause, Morgan le Fay and Elaine of Garlot (in most versions her daughters are from her first marriage).

Accidental Adultery: While still married to Gorlois, she unwittingly sleeps with Uther after he uses magic to take on her husband's appearance; this leads to Arthur's conception.
Adaptational Consent: In some versions, Arthur isn't conceived until Igraine has lawfully married Uther rather than via a Bed Trick. Then again, it's debatable as to how much choice she had about marrying Uther.
Depending on the Writer: Her daughters, Arthur's half-sisters, solidified as Morgan and Morgause. But sometimes there's a third daughter named Elaine or something else, and she may have two or three daughters by Gorlois and still more from a previous husband.
Inconsistent Spelling: Igraine's name is also commonly spelled as Ygraine (the French form), along with several other variants. Her name originally comes from the Welsh Eigyr.
Missing Mom: To Arthur; shortly after his birth he is taken away by Merlin to be raised by his uncle.
Small Role, Big Impact: Usually drops out of the story after Arthur's birth, but she's the family link between Arthur and his older sisters.
Who's Your Daddy?: While pregnant she puts the dates together and realizes that there's no way Gorlois could have impregnated her since he was out on the battlefield. Uther lets her stew for a while, even joshing her about it, before revealing the truth behind his Bed Trick.

Elaine of Garlot

Igraine's third daughter and Arthur's third sister, overshadowed by Morgan and Morgause.

Adapted Out: Her fate in many if not most and especially modern works which distill Arthur's sisters down to Morgause and Morgan.
Inconsistent Spelling: Like other Elaines, her name's sometimes Elen as in Welsh.
One-Steve Limit: Defied as she's not the only Elaine in the legends/literature, and certainly not the most prominent or important one. But given Arthur's supposed kinship links to people named Constantine/Constantius/Constans etc, including the Emperor Constantine the Great himself, it kind of makes sense for her to have that name since St. Helena or Elen was Constantine's mother.
Satellite Character: Just a name really compared to her more famous sisters, as she exists to be wed to an ally king and produce a nephew, as long as they aren't the more famous ones. Authors eventually settled on her husband being Nentres of Garlot... who eventually was/is often adapted out himself, along with their son, Galeschin or whoever.

Elaine of Corbenic

The daughter of King Pelles of Corbenic, who became the mother of Galahad by Lancelot.

Because Destiny Says So: Elaine's dad knew (somehow) that she'd give birth to Lancelot's child, who would be the most noble knight in the world, lead a foreign country out of danger and achieve the Holy Grail. This all came to pass, but destiny needed to grab some roofies first.
Bed Trick: Since Lancelot was obsessed with Guinevere, Elaine went to the sorceress Dame Brusen who gave her a magic ring which would change her form into the Queen's so Lancelot would sleep with her. Brusen also gave Lancelot some wine, which probably helped smooth over any suspicions on Lancelot's part.
Cute Witch: She's beautiful, and uses a magical item to get with Lancelot. She also has a sorceress (Dame Brusen) for a friend, whose level of cuteness is unmentioned.
Easily Forgiven: Zigzagged. In the morning, after the ring's power wore off, Lancelot was about to kill Elaine for what she'd done. However, she explained everything and told him she was pregnant with Galahad, and Lancelot put away his sword and kissed her instead—before immediately leaving the castle without delay. Later, (some years after giving birth to Galahad) she attended a feast at King Arthur's castle, and Lancelot gave Elaine the cold shoulder, to her dismay.
I Have Many Names: Elaine, Elizabeth, Heliabel, Amite. Bonus: Carbonek, Corbenec, Corbin...
Rescue Romance: The first time Elaine met Lancelot was when he rescued her from Morgan Le Fay, whose jealousy at Elaine's beauty led her to imprison Elaine in a magical boiling bath. She fell in love with him, but he told her that he was already in love with Queen Guinevere and could never be with another woman.
Ring of Power: Dame Brusen, a sorceress, gave Elain a ring which would grant her the appearance of Guinevere. It didn't work overnight, though.
Second Love: As mentioned above, Elaine was at one of King Arthur's feasts when Lancelot upset her by ignoring her. She complains about this to Dame Brusen, who says she'll handle it. Brusen goes to Lancelot claiming that Guinevere wanted to meet him privately in a room Brusen would lead him to. As you can guess, it was Elaine and her ring again. This time, though, Guinevere, who had come to Lancelot's bedchamber looking for a little somethin'-somethin' and found him missing, caught them in bed when she heard Lancelot sleep-talking. Guinevere screams at the two of them and tells Lancelot she never wants to see him again which causes him to go insane and jump out the window naked. Elaine leaves the court after angrily calling Guinevere out for her treatment of Lancelot. Some time later Elaine finds the crazy knight doing crazy things in her garden and starts looking after him. Eventually, Lancelot sees a vision of the Holy Grail which restores him to sanity, and they marry and live together for several years. But then a couple of knights come and tell Lancelot that Guinevere sent them out to look for him and off he goes.
So Beautiful, It's a Curse: It got Elaine stuck in a prison of boiling water for a while thanks to Morgan Le Fay.

Guinier

The wife of Caradoc Briefbras and sister of Cador.

Artificial Limb: Artificial boob. Or nipple, even. Made out of gold and a magical replacement. Long story short, Caradoc was cursed with a magical snake constricting his arm, and the only way to remove it was to have him lie naked in a tub full of sour wine or vinegar, while a pure maiden lay naked in a tub full of milk beside him, but with her chest exposed, luring the snake to jump off him and onto her. Guinier volunteered for this and Cador killed the snake, but not without her losing part of her breast. But that's fixed with magic as well, and she and Caradoc get married after this.
Happily Married: Apparently the only one or one of the few knights' wives at Camelot who didn't fool around. This reflects her probable Welsh counterpart/prototype, Tegau Eurvron/Eurfron wife of Caradoc Vreichvras. In the Welsh Triads, she's praised for her fidelity/chastity as one of the "Three Faithful Wives of Britain", in contrast to "Three Unfaithful Wives" plus Gwenhwyfar who's even worse than those three, and one of the "Thirteen Treasures of Britain" is her mantle which perfectly fit a faithful wife but was too short for unfaithful ones. In some stories the mantle is directly adapted for Sir Caradoc's wife, and in others Caradoc is the only one who can drink from a magical horn that spills if the drinker is a cuckold. Sometimes the horn is a virginity/chastity test before they get married.
Inconsistent Spelling: Seemingly based on the Welsh figure Tegau Eurvron, wife of Caradoc Vreichvras. Eurfron means "golden breast", but a Welsh version of how she got the name has not survived.
Rescue Romance: Caradoc saves her and her brother after both were captured by an evil knight (her brother failing to rescue her first), and she and Caradoc fall for each other, plus she and her brother become his True Companions.

Lyonors and Lynette the Damosel Savage

A pair of sisters whose home, the Castle Dangerous (or Castle Perilous) was threatened by Sir Ironside the Red in his brutish attempt to woo Lyonors. With Lyonors under seige Lynette traveled to Camelot to request aid from one of Arthur's knights. The one to take on this quest was Sir Gareth, not yet knighted and still in his "Beaumains" persona, leading to a quest where he defeated Ironside's brothers one by one on the one hand while passively accepting Lynette's jeers and insults on the other. After the quest Gareth marries Lyonors, Gaheris marries Lynetter, and Agravaine marries their niece Laurel.

Fan-Preferred Couple: For a variety of reasons, Gareth and Lynette have become the more popular pairing over Malory's version, most famously in Tennyson's adaptation of the story.
Inconsistent Spelling: Liones, Lionesse, Lionors, Lyones, Lyonesse, Lyonores, and Lyonoros for Lyonors, Linet and Lynet for Lynette. Lyonors and Lynette specifically are the spellings Tennyson went with. Theories have been put forward that Lyonors's name came from Lyzianor, the mother of Loholt, and Lynette's name is generally accepted to have come from Lunete, the Lady of the Fountain in Chretien's romance on Ywaine.
Values Dissonance: In Malory's time, Lyonors refusing to wed Gareth even after he defeated Sir Ironside but instead insisting he labored as a just knight for a year was meant to be seen as a Secret Test of Character, her kidnapping his dwarf companion was meant to be humorous, and her flirting with Gareth while in disguise was a representation of Amor. As chivalry faded in relevance she instead became viewed as ungrateful and manipulative, and readers instead began to view Lynette as the preferable love interest for actually having a character arc (that this exact narrative of the knight and uncourteous damsel falling in love happens in Malory with La Cote Male Taile and Maledisant/Bien Pesant/Beauvivante likely didn't do Lyonors any favors).
White Mage: While Malory is vague on the exact details, Lynette is generally interpreted as being skilled in healing magic.

Other Kings

Uther Pendragon

Arthur's father, and the High King of Britain before him.

Adaptational Heroism/Adaptational Villainy: The medieval sources invariably described him as a noble king, but his actions really don't come off that way to modern readers. Newer adaptations vary between rewriting the circumstances of his and Igraine's marriage, thus allowing him to be good, or running with the idea that he was, at best, a Jerkass.
And Now You Must Marry Me: Made his attraction to Igraine known while she was still married to Duke Gorlois, and laid siege against Gorlois' castle until the Duke was killed and his allies sued for peace, whereupon he married her the very same night. Doesn't look like she had much choice in the matter.
Anti-Hero: Unscrupulous Hero. A strong king, who seems to have ruled fairly, but definitely not what you would call a good person.
Bed Trick: Had Merlin give him the appearance of Duke Gorlois so he could sleep with Igraine, conceiving Arthur.
Death by Origin Story: Arthur becomes king because of his death, being his son and all, but he is plucked from a life of obscurity with a foster-family and thrust onto the throne at a young age. Details vary though.
The High King: His title in modern adaptations, although he was merely referred to as "King" in the source material.
Jerkass: A real piece of work, as the other entries show.
Kick the Dog: Jokingly needled the already-nervous Igraine about who (or what) the father of her child might be, considering Gorlois was dead on the battlefield when it was conceived. When he finally reveals the truth, it's noted that she's quite relieved, as opposed to belting him one. When Arthur was actually born, he gave the kid to Merlin without consulting her first or explaining why. Husband of the Year material, here.
Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Pendragon is a Welsh epithet (sometimes treated as a surname or dynastic name by later authors) which translates to "Chief Dragon" in English, "dragon" probably being a figurative term for warrior. "Uther" itself may come from a Welsh word meaning "awesome" and/or "horrible/terrible" (in the original sense of "fearsome" rather than "bad"). So his name might mean "Horrifying Chief Warrior".
- Due to some "Blind Idiot" Translation by Geoffrey, "head dragon" got mixed up as "dragon's head", so the name was explained as being inspired by a Comet of Doom which looked like a dragon.
Second Love: For Igraine, apparently. At any rate she actually seemed to be quite upset when he died.

Vortigern

A king who ruled just before Uther's time. Gildas vaguely alludes to him as "the Supreme Tyrant" but says little else about him. He is also listed in the Welsh Geneaologies as ancestor of the early kings of Powys, and in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as an opponent of the Saxons. It's now considered likely the Powysians had a more positive view of him, given that their king Cyngen II took great pains to emphasize his descent from Vortigern, but it's Historia Brittonum that has solidified the view of him as a tyrant who invited the Saxons to Britain in the first place. Geoffrey of Monmouth took it even further, making him a usurper who murdered the rightful king then gave power to the Saxons out of lust for Hengist's daughter Rowena, and that has been the general impression of him ever since.

0% Approval Rating: Everybody came to hate him, meaning he used the Saxons... which made him even more unpopular.
Antagonistic Offspring: His own sons rebelled against him, and he was kicked off the throne temporarily.
Composite Character: His betrayal and murder of Constans is taken from Gerontius, the Magister Militum of Constantine III who murdered the historical Constans.
Evil Uncle: Modern works which make Magnus Maximus the grandfather of Ambrosius and Uther make Vortigern into this for them by extension, as he's married to Maximus's daughter Sevira. There's also a few odd modern instances where he's an evil uncle of Arthur directly, making him Uther's brother in place of Ambrosius.
Family Theme Naming: Had sons named Vortimer, Catigern and... Pascent.
Famous Ancestor: Of the early kings of Powys and Gwertheyrnion (which literally mean "Vortigern's land").
Founder of the Kingdom: Of Builth and Gwertheyrnion, and one of the founders of Powys alongside Cadell Gleaming-Hilt.
The High King: Before Uther's time.
Historical Domain Character: One of the few Arthurian figures historians generally agree was real. Since "Vortigern" means something like "overlord" in Brittonic, it's disputed whether it ought to be taken as a title, or his real name since he seems to have practiced Family Theme Naming - on the one hand, Gildas obliquely refers to him only as "the Supreme Tyrant," but on the other hand name-based puns aren't unusual for Gildas and the name is common in Irish as "Fritchern."
Historical Villain Upgrade: There is evidence that he was a victim of this - Gildas is dismissive of him but only in a "he and his advisors were fools" sort of way, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle lists him and not Vortimer as the Brittonic ruler fighting the Saxons, and there is evidence scattered around Powys that he was well respected in the kingdom - the Pillar of Eliseg once trumpeted his rulership, his marriage to Sevira, and the blessing of his son by Saint Germanus (sadly, this has all since eroded off). The Historia Brittonum was written in Powys's long-time rival Gwynedd, and around the same time it was written Powys was conquered by Gwynedd, ending any chance of a counterpoint to the Historia's claims.
Hoist by His Own Petard: Allowed the Saxons, Angles and Jutes to settle in Britain in order to serve as his mercenaries. They turned on him and Uther and Arthur would have to fight them.
Kill It with Fire: One version of his death has him trapped in a burning tower.
Lean and Mean: His full name is Vortigern Vorteneu - Vortigern the Thin.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: By inviting the Anglo-Saxons into Britain, he's essentially responsible for the entire Anglo-Saxon conquest that followed, with the Britons losing control over most of their lands.
The Usurper: He is said to have seized the throne after betraying Uther's brother and/or father (depending on the story)
Walking the Earth: Another version of his death has him die in obscurity after going into exile and wandering about.
Would Hurt a Child: Tried to build a tower that kept tumbling down and was told that only the blood of a child with no human father could secure it. That child was Merlin, who had other ideas.

Ambrosius Aurelianus

A king who ruled just before Uther's time. First mentioned by Gildas in his De Excidio as a paragon of Roman virtues. For unknown reasons, in his next appearance in Historia Brittonum he is an Oracular Urchin a council of wizards coerces Vortigern into sacrificing, only for him to outwit them and prophesize Vortigern's doom. From Geoffrey of Monmouth on he becomes Uther's immediate predecessor as king, Arthur's uncle, and holds less and less importance in the growing legend.

Adaptation Name Change: Geoffrey of Monmouth swaps his nomen and cognomen to name him "Aurelius Ambrosius." Monmouth also wrote that Ambrosius's symbol was the dragon head, and that Uther took his epithet from this - as a result, later writers simplified the narrative and changed Ambrosius's name to King Pendragon or Pandragon, divorcing him even further from the historical figure. This is all in addition to his traditional Welsh name of Emrys Wledig (Ambrosius the Imperator).
Ambiguous Situation: The Battle of Guoloph, mentioned in Historia Brittonum, where Ambrosius fights a certain Vitalinus. Why they fought, where Guoloph is, or who won has never been satisfactorily answered, and the only thing people seem to agree on is that Vitalinus had some sort of connection with Vortigern (Vortigern's grandfather was named Gwydolin, which is the Welsh form of Vitalinus).
Big Good: For the monk Gildas, who in his writings chews out every British ruler he names, except Ambrosius who he treats as The Paragon. Modern retellings aiming for a historical plausible setting often make him this towards Arthur.
Composite Character: Monmouth likely got the "Aurelius Ambrosius" name from the actual Aurelius Ambrosius, the Praetorian Prefect of Gaul in 337 - in other words, a man who had military authority in Britain during the reign of Constantine II (who was succeeded by his brother Constans). This has even led to a fringe theory that Gildas was actually praising said Prefect, and the idea that there was a post-Roman warlord named Ambrosius Aurelianus was a mistake, although this theory has never gained mainstream acceptance and had died out by the 2010s. Aurelius Ambrosius is today largely known as one of the men theorized to have been the father of Saint Ambrose of Milan (whose full named was also Aurelius Ambrosius).
Death by Origin Story: In Geoffrey, Uther's older brother who briefly ruled as king before him, replacing Vortigern. He dies of poison and Uther succeeds him.
Decomposite Character:
- Aurelius Ambrosius the warrior king and Merlin the wizard/prophet ("also called Ambrosius") as found in Geoffrey seem to both ultimately derive from the Ambrosius Aurelianus of Gildas, who had tales of him being a boy prophet as per Nennius.
- During the later part of the 20th century a theory arose that argued there were, in fact, two men named Ambrosius Aurelianus, a father-son pair. This was based on interpretations of events that placed Vortigern in the 420s and Ambrosius in the late 460s. The argument went that the elder Ambrosius was the one who opposed Vortigern and fought Vitalinus at Guoloph, while the younger Ambrosius was the figure Gildas praised who fought the Saxons and started the conflict that concluded with Badon. The younger Ambrosius would also be the Oracular Urchin who serves as the proto-Merlin in Historia Brittonum and was a popular candidate for the "real" Arthur. More recent interpretations put Vortigern in the 440s and Ambrosius in the 450s, which have caused this concept to fall out of favor and be replaced by a singular Ambrosius opposing both Vortigern and the Saxons.
Demoted to Extra: Geoffrey of Monmouth gives him a brief (if eventful) five year reign, whereupon he is poisoned and the focus shifts to Uther. In addition, Monmouth gives his Oracular Urchin backstory from Historia Brittonum to Merlin. As a result, the Romances focus on Ambrosius less and less, ultimately reducing him down to merely being the source of Uther's epithet. This reaches its ultimate conclusion with Malory, who omits the Ambrosius and Vortigern story entirely. As a result he's often skipped in retellings based on the Romances, although retellings aiming for a more historically plausible take give him greater prominence. He also maintained prominence in works that focused on Vortigern, which likely helped him survive in popular consciousness until historically-plausible Arthurian fiction came into vogue.
The High King: From Nennius on he takes this role in the legend.
Historical Domain Character: Another Arthurian figure who historians agree was real. In his earliest mention by Gildas, he appears as the one who rallied the Britons against their Saxon foes with no mention of Arthur or Uther. Nennius mentions him too as the Oracular Urchin son of a rival lord of Vortigern who later became high king. Arthur is instead mentioned as a general fighting for the British kings.
Inconsistent Spelling: The earliest source, Gildas, calls him "Ambrosius Aurelianus". Geoffrey calls him "Aurelius Ambrosius". And in Welsh "Ambrosius" is "Emrys".
Last of His Kind: Gildas calls him the "last of the Romans" in Britain.
Oracular Urchin: Most curiously, he first appears in Nennius as the boy without a human father who Vortigern encounters—in later retellings starting with Geoffrey, the boy is Merlin.
Rightful King Returns: When his brother Constans is murdered and Vortigern usurps the throne he and Uther are too young to rule and are forced to flee to Brittany. They return later and depose Vortigern.

Constantinus & Constans

Arthur's paternal grandfather and eldest uncle, respectively. Most information about them comes from Historia Regum Britanniae. They are very loosely based off of a father-son pair of usurper emperors who came to power in Roman Britain in 407.

Adaptational Name Change: In later romances, Constans is renamed "Maine" or "Moine", an obvious corruption of the word "monk."
Composite Character: One Welsh genealogy replaces Constantinus with Custennin Corneu, an ancestral figure to the Dumnonian royal line. Modern works tend to combine him with a presumed son of Magnus Maximus also named Constantinus (Geoffrey hints that Constantinus is related to Maximus in some way but is never clear how).
Clueless Boss: Constans is a monk before becoming king (as was the real person he's based on), and only succeeds his father because Ambrosius and Uther are still young children. He does not know how to rule and leaves power in Vortigern's hands, allowing him to kill him and seize the throne.
Decapitation Presentation: Constans is murdered by Picts and his head is cut off and presented to Vortigern.
Dies Differently in Adaptation: Their real life counterparts were killed away from Britain, in a Roman civil war in early 5th century. In Geoffrey they are treacherously murdered by Picts (who, in Constans's case, were encouraged by Vortigern).
The High King: Constantinus was the 101st king of Britain, with Constans as his immediate successor.
Historical Domain Character: Based on the Roman ususper Constantine III, who launched a revolt from Britain against Honorius, and his firstborn son. The career of Geoffrey's Constantine is even an inverse of the historical figure - one took all of the remaining professional soldiers to Europe and left Britain almost completely defenseless to barbarian raids, while the other leads a professional army from Europe to save a defenseless Britain from barbarian raids.
Historical Relationship Overhaul: In real life, Constantinus had a son named Constans, but his secondborn was named Julianus, and they both died childless. Ambrosius is a historical figure, but they were (presumably) not related. As for Uther, his whole existence is debatable. Geoffrey also makes Constantinus a brother to king Aldroenus of Brittany, whom all evidence points to being entirely an invention of Geoffrey. Baudin Butor in the late 13th Century then made Constantinus brother-in-law to Kings Ban and Bors.
Inconsistent Spelling: Constantinus may be anglicized to Constantine, and the Welsh variant is Custennin. Constans may also be called Constantius (which accidently conflates him with the man who executed Constantinus).
Puppet King: Constans was this to Vortigern.
Spared by the Adaptation: Very, very briefly - the historical Constans was murdered while his father was still alive.
You Killed My Father: Vortigern had Constans killed, which makes Ambrosius's war against him more personal.

Magnus Maximus

A historic Roman usurper, originially from Hispania, who was acclaimed in Britain in 383, overthrew and executed Emperor Gratian, and then ruled until his own death at the hands of Emperor Theodosius in 388. He had also previously fought in Britain during the Great Conspiracy under Theodosius's father Count Theodosius the Elder (and may, in fact, have been kin to the Theodosians). Between these two events he was quickly adopted by the Britons as a folk hero named Macsen Wledig, geneaolgies reference him as the founder figure of Gwent, and he appears in Monmouth's pseudo-history as Maximianus, an ancestor of Ambrosius and Uther - and thus Arthur by extension. Modern adaptations of the Romances make him Arthur's great-grandfather. He is perhaps most famous in Arthurian lore as the father of Vortigern's first wife Sevira, but he also has his own story in the Mabinogion, The Dream of Macsen Wledig.

Famous Ancestor: Modern adaptations will often make him this to King Arthur by compositing Arthur's grandfather Constantine with a potential son of Maximus of the same name. In older sources, other sons of his are listed as the ancestors of the kings of Gwent, Dyfed, and the Isle of Man by Sevira he is the grandfather of Vortigern's sons (and thus ancestor of the kings of Powys), a different potential daughter makes him the ancestor of the rulers of Brycheiniog and Dumnonia, and there have even been arguments that he was the grandfather or great-grandfather of the later usurper Petronius Maximus. Through the kings of the Isle of Man he was also claimed as ancestor of the Aberffraw dynasty that ruled Gwynedd from the late 800s almost uninterrupted until the kingdom's final conquest by Edward I, making him ancestor to the last native Welsh rulers.
Founder of the Kingdom: Various sources gave him sons who were ancestors of the first kings of Glywyising, Gwent, Dyfed, and the Isle of Man. Geoffrey of Monmouth also made him directly responsible for the settling of Britons in Armorica under Conan Meriadoc (either his brother-in-law or his wife's cousin, depending on the source), and thus responsible for the existence of Brittany. Even in later years, he was viewed as a founder figure for Wales in its entirety (as seen in the Welsh patriotic song "Yma o Hyd", for example).
Historical Domain Character: A real-life Roman usurper who got absorbed into the Matter of Britain because of his connections to the island.
Historical Hero Upgrade: Gildas decries him as a baseless usurper and the Continental writers viewed him as merely one of a line of overmighty generals, but to the Welsh he was a mythic figure who was ancestor to some of their greatest kings and heroes.

Vortimer & Catigern

The two sons of Vortigern who turned on their father's pro-Saxon policies and fought Hengist in four pitched battles, only for Catigern to die in the second battle and Vortimer to be poisoned by Rowena. In Welsh tradition, both of them carry the epithet "Fendigaid", meaning "The Blessed."

The High King: After the battles and Catigern's death, Vortimer briefly deposes his father and becomes this. Rowena ensures it doesn't last.
Inconsistent Spelling: While Vortimer's name has been fairly consistent, expect to see Catigern as "Cattegirn" or the modern Welsh spelling "Cadeyrn."
Meaningful Name: Vortimer means "highest king" and he becomes The High King, while Catigern means "Battle Prince" and he is remembered as a Warrior Prince. As with their father, both names have been theorized to have been titles or epithets that supplanted their real names in legend, although also like their father both names are recorded for other figures as normal names.
Warrior Prince: A brother duo of them, although Vortimer briefly becomes king.
The Wise Prince: Vortimer's whole deal in the Historia Brittonum to contrast with his father.

Pascent

The third, loyal son of Vortigern. Pascent outlived his father, but what became of him next varies from telling to telling. The Welsh Genealogies and Pillar of Eliseg record him as an ancestor of the kings of Powys, the Historia Brittonum makes him the founder of Buellt after making peace with Ambrosius Aurelianus, and Geoffrey of Monmouth has him raise an army with the aid of the Irish king Gillomanius in an attempt to overthrow Ambrosius only to be killed by Uther.

Adaptational Villainy=/=Historical Villain Upgrade: In the Historia Brittonum he and Ambrosius come to an understanding, making Ambrosius The High King but allowing Pascent to continue ruling some of his father's territory, the future kingdoms of Buellt and Gwertheyrnion. In Monmouth's version, he's an Overlord Jr. who launches a massive invasion of Britain from Ireland.
Death by Adaptation: Neither the Welsh Genealogies nor the Historia Brittonum record how he died, but he clearly lived long enough to establish two royal lines. In Geoffrey's version Uther kills him during his attempted invasion of Britain and nothing more is told of Vortigern's lineage for the rest of the History of the Kings of Britain.
Overlord Jr.: In Monmouth's version of events, he attempts to become this, only for Uther to kill him.
Small Role, Big Impact: His invasion of Britain gives Eoppa the chance to assassinate Ambrosius, leading to Uther becoming king.

Lot of Lothian and/or Orkney

The father of Gawain and his brothers and husband of Morgause.

Adaptational Villainy: Wasn't a villain in Geoffrey of Monmouth (Arthur even helps him become King of Norway), but is one from the Vulgate Cycle onward.
Continuity Snarl: Geoffrey names him as the husband of Arthur's sister Anna (called Morgause in later works), but then he later says that Lot married Aurelius's (and Uther's) sister i.e. Arthur's aunt when also mentioning their sons Gawain and Mordred. But then still later he calls Gawain and Mordred Arthur's nephews instead of cousins, so most later authors go with Arthur's sister for Lot's wife. A notable exception is the Scottish medieval historian Hector Boece who thus made Mordred Arthur's cousin and peer instead of nephew/junior and in fact the rightful heir, to one-up the English as represented by Arthur.
Defeat Means Friendship: After being a Starter Villain. But in some versions Arthur's baby-killing drives him to rebel again, leading to his death.
Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In some versions, Sir Gawain and his brothers pursue a Blood Feud with King Pellinore and his family after Pellinore kills him—despite Lot having rebelled against Arthur.
Inconsistent Spelling: Loth. His name may have been further influenced by and confused with other names like the Norse name Ljot, reflecting his later association with the Orkney islands which for centuries was linked to the medieval Kingdom of Norway (in fact, there was an actual Jarl of Orkney named Ljot - he fought Macbeth twice), and the Welsh Lludd, Llew, and Llewddyn.
Punny Name: Lot of Lothian. Geoffrey did this a lot. This is obscured by later works which tend to emphasize his realm being Orkney, often omitting Lothian.
Starter Villain: The leader of a group of rebel kings in the early years of Arthur's reign.

Uriens of Gorre

The (eventual) husband of Morgan le Fay and father of both Ywaines.

Adaptational Villainy: A mild case. Like Lot, he wasn't a villain in Monmouth's work (and was based off a national hero to the Welsh beside), but in the later Romances he joins the Rebel Kings. Unlike the other Rebel Kings he abandons this shortly after meeting Arthur.
Ambiguous Situation: His relationship with Bagdemagus, who is also King of Gorre, and by extent Bagdemagus's son Meliagrant.
Composite Character: Lord Tennyson combines him with the phonetically similar King Ryons or Rience.
Defeat Means Friendship: In most versions after being defeated by Arthur in the first rebellion Uriens finds himself appreciating the young king and ultimately joins the Round Table.
Historical Domain Character: Loosely based on a historical king, Urien of Rheged, who is dated to around the 570s. By extent, the two Ywaines are even more loosely based on Urien of Rheged's son Owain of Rheged.
Inconsistent Spelling: Uryens, Urien.
Redemption Equals Life: In most later traditions he is the only rebel king who swears fealty to Arthur after his defeat and as a result is the only one not killed at Bedegraine. In other traditions the rebel kings are allowed to escape upon Merlin's advice.
Related in the Adaptation:
- Geoffrey seems to have taken Urien of Rheged and made him one of three brother kings up North: Urien of Murief (Moray?) is the brother of Lot of Lodonesia (Lothian) and Angusel of Albania (Scotland). Later Uriens's realm is named Gorre instead of a real place, and his family ties to Lot (if appearing at all) become based on their marriages to Arthur's sisters, not by being brothers themselves.
- Eventually Uriens is named as Morgan le Fay's husband, as in earlier romances he was just said to be one of Arthur's brothers-in-law but not her husband specifically. This is possibly taken from Welsh traditions where Urien of Rheged is romanced by a fairy woman who provides him with twin children, one of whom was Owain.

Angusel of Scotland

Lot and Uriens's brother and another of Arthur's early allies.

Adapted Out: Fairly prominent alongside his brothers in Geoffrey, but tends to be left out if not Demoted to Extra in later works. But this means he never underwent Adaptational Villainy to the extent that the others did.
Decomposite Character: It's unclear if he's supposed to be or originated as the same person as Anguish of Ireland from the Tristan and Iseult stories, but the names may show some kind of link.
Inconsistent Spelling: Anguselus or Auguselus in Latin, the n/u difference probably due to handwriting, but "Angus-" is probably intended due to the modern name Angus being still in use. Anguish in Malory. There's a fringe theory that he might be the distant origin for Lancelot, at least the name. Other spellings include Anguishance, Anguissance, Anguissant, etc.
One-Steve Limit: Marloy calls him Anguish, but he also has Anguish of Ireland, and is unclear if he means the same person.
Related in the Adaptation: Sometimes instead of being a brother of Lot, he is yet another nephew of Arthur, the son of yet another of Arthur's sisters and Caradoc/Karadan.

Nentres of Garlot

Another brother-in-law of Arthur.

Decomposite Character: The Inconsistent Spelling of his name has led to some to suggest that he was split off from Uriens, due to misreading Uriens's name in handwriting, and his realm Garlot is occasionally said to be held by Uriens instead of the later Gorre. Some have also seen the name of his realm Garlot and thus himself to derive from Lot, as Garlot might come from "Caer Lot" i.e. "Lot's fort"?
Defeat Equals Friendship: One of the rebel kings alongside Lot and Uriens whom Arthur defeated and made his allies.
Depending on the Writer: Some writers named him as Morgan le Fay's husband before it became Uriens. Sometimes his wife is yet another sister of hers and Arthur's, named Elaine (not to be confused with yet other Elaines) or the unfortunately-named "Batarde", or is left unnamed. His son with Elaine is Galeschin.
Inconsistent Spelling: Neutres or Uentres or Ventres, the n/u/v thing similar to Angusel/Augusel.

Budic/Emyr Llydaw

The King of Brittany who gave refuge to Ambrosius and Uther, according to Geoffrey, and later married Anna and fathered Hoel. The Welsh called him "Emyr Llydaw", the Emperor of Brittany, and attributed him with the paternity of numerous Breton saints.

Adapted Out: One of the figures from Geoffrey's tale that didn't catch on in later Romances. While his son Hoel continued to be a major figure in the Tristan cycle, in greater Arthurian legend Budic saw his role taken by Ban and Bors (continental kings who support Arthur), and Lot, Nentres, and Uriens (kings who marry Arthur's sisters).
Composite Character: There are at least three Budics attributed to the post-Roman time period, any of whom could have been the source of Geoffrey's "Budicius" or the Welsh "Emyr Llydaw" - and there have been arguments that Emyr Llydaw might have been a seperate figure to begin with and only became associated with Budic because both men had sons named Hoel/Hywel.
Decomposite Character: There have been arguments that Ban and Nentres both split off from Budic, Ban on the basis of his kingdom traditionally being in France and being an early ally of Arthur, Nentres on the idea that his name is a mutation of "Emyr", and both on the basis of having wives named Elaine, one of whom is Arthur's sister.
The High King: The High King of Brittany as Arthur is High King of Britain. The literal translation of "Emyr Llydaw" is even Emperor/High King of Brittany.
Related in the Adaptation: Possibly. Geoffrey is vague on the relationship between Budic and the previous Breton monarch Aldroenus, but historians who accepted his work as fact (which was common in England and Brittany until the Cromwellian period) interpreted him as a son of Aldroenus and thus cousin to Uther and Ambrosius.

Conan Meriadoc

A founding figure of Brittany associated with Magnus Maximus. In The Dream of Macsen Wledig Cynan was the son of Eudaf Hen and brother of Elen of the Hosts. When Macsen (Magnus Maximus) marries Elen, Cynan and his brother Afaon become Macsen's loyal retainers. As a gift, Macsen grants Cynan Armorica. In the History of the Kings of Britain, Conan Meriadoc is the nephew of "Octavius" (Eudaf) and cousin of Helen (Elen). According to Geoffrey, he is enraged when Maximianus marries Helen, as now Maximianus is Octavius's heir to the kingdom of Britain instead of him. After a brief conflict, Conan and Maximianus reconcile and, as in Dream, Conan is granted Armorica and becomes its first king. In the Bonedd y Seint Conan appears as the father of Afaon (now called Gadeon or Cadfan, depending on the source), not the brother, and through him ancestor of the kings of Dumnonia. These sources influenced interpretations of Breton and Cornish history for centuries.

Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Depending on the source he is the son or nephew of Eudaf Hen, the brother or cousin of Elen of the Hosts, and the brother or father of Afaon/Gadeon/Cadfan. Interpretations of Breton genealogies make him the father of the Breton folk hero Gradlon and great-grandfather of Aldroenus and Constantinus, and thus a direct ancestor of Arthur (Geoffrey is incredibly vague of Aldroenu's relationship to Conan, just saying that Aldroenus was the fourth king of Brittany).
Ascended Extra: There is a founding figure in Breton sources named Conan, but he was a comparitavely minor figure compared to the Seven Founding Saints. After Geoffrey got hold of him, he became the central figure in Breton historiography until Brittany officially united with France.
Composite Character: Possibly. There's no evidence the Cynan of The Dream of Macsen Wledig and the Conan from the Bonedd y Seint are the same figure other than the genealogical Conan lining up with Magnus Maximus's dates reasonably well.
Decomposite Character: Some later stories treat "Meriadoc" as a seperate figure from Conan, a saint also named Meriasek, who is sometimes a descendant of Conan and sometimes a contemporary. In addition, the name Meriadoc was used for the protagonists of two seperate Arthurian romances.
Famous Ancestor: Became interpreted as the famous ancestor of all Breton rulers after Geoffrey's work was published. Depending on how you interpret his relationship with Cadfan, he is also this for the Dumnonian rulers. This idea was so prevalent thay even after Brittany was annexed by France, the Rohan family of Breton nobles continued to argue for the French court to recognize them as foreign royalty based on their supposed descent from Conan - Louis XIV recognized the pedigree but refused to acknowledge them as foreigners, and in any event the argument became moot when the French Revolution occured.
Founder of the Kingdom: Thanks to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Conan Meriadoc hijacked this trope from Brittany's traditional founders, the Seven Founding Saints.
Kick the Dog: Upon being granted Armorica, he orders that the Armorican women have their tongues cut out so that they can't accidentally teach their children the Gallic version of Celtic instead of the Brittonic version. This is a "Just So" Story meant to explain why the Welsh word for Brittany is "Llydaw", with a folk etymology claiming Llydaw means "Half-Speech" (it actually comes from the Pre-Roman Letavii tribe).
King in the Mountain: There's evidence that he was a subject of this, with the Armes Prydain mentioning him in the same breath as Cadwaladr of Gwynedd as a legendary figure who will return to aid the Britons.
Writers Cannot Do Math: His fiancee was supposedly Saint Ursula, daughter of King Dionotus of Cornwall, who, along with her entourage of 11,000 virgins, was martyred by the Huns - a good seventy years before the Huns became a threat to Gaul. The story is now considered completely legendary, although before then it was popular enough to be the namesake of the Virgin Islands.

Caradoc of Scotland

Another brother-in-law of Arthur, sometimes.

Continuity Snarl: Malory uses him as Carados, but once confuses him with Cador which he also uses, naming him instead of Cador as the father of Sir Constantine.
Defeat Equals Friendship: Sometimes one of the rebel kings alongside Lot and Uriens whom Arthur defeated and made his allies.
Depending on the Writer: Sometimes the husband of an unnamed sister of Arthur and Morgan. Sometimes not.
Decomposite Character: With Sir Caradoc, his son who joins the Round Table, ultimately (probably) from the Welsh figure Caradoc Vreichvras.
Inconsistent Spelling: Caradoc, Carados, Caradan, also spelled with a K instead of C.
One-Steve Limit: Defied with his son Caradoc/Carados and others of that name.

Ryons

An early rival of Arthur. Initially at war with Leodegrance, Arthur's marriage with Guenevere brings him into alliance with Lot and the Rebel Kings.

Adaptation Species Change: His prototype seems to be Ritho, a giant mentioned in passing in Geoffrey's Historia with a similar quirk. He's mentioned by Arthur as a giant he's already defeated in the past soon after he defeats the Giant of St. Michael's Mount. Some Welsh folktales speak of Ritho, Itho, etc. fighting Arthur on a mountain, sometimes pulling each other's beards out, with Ritho losing and being buried on the mountain.
Collector of the Strange: A king of the North who demanded Arthur's submission... and beard. He had a cloak made out of or trimmed with the beards of eleven kings, and Arthur was to be the twelfth. Arthur defeats him instead.
Even Evil Can Be Loved: His brother Nero attempts to avenge him and joins Lot's forces. Thanks to Merlin distracting Lot it doesn't work and Nero is himself killed.
Inconsistent Spelling: Rions, Ryons, Ryence, Rience, thus also sometimes confused/merged with Uriens.
What Happened to the Mouse?: In some tellings he is captured away from Arthur's battle(s) with the rebel kings by Balin and Balan and brought to Arthur. Then he drops out of the story.

Lucius Tiberius

Procurator (sometimes Emperor) of Rome who makes war with Arthur's allies in Gaul, causing Arthur to come down (leaving Mordred and/or Lancelot in charge) to fight him.

Animal Motifs: Arthur has a dream of a dragon defeating a bear, and figures that the dream predicts his victory over Lucius with him as the dragon and Lucius as the bear. Muddling the issue in various retellings is that Lucius may have dragon motifs of his own like heraldry or banners (reflecting that the dragon was used for late Roman standards, like the earlier and more famous eagle), and that Arthur's own name is likely related to the Celtic word for "bear".
The Dragon: Implied to be this in his earliest appearance in Geoffrey of Monmouth, where there is reference to an Emperor Leo and Lucius is Procurator. However nearly all later texts drop Leo and just make Lucius Emperor.
Inconsistent Spelling: Sometimes Lucius Hiberius instead of Tiberius, both of which are suspected to be misspellings of Glycerius.
Klingon Promotion: Defeating Lucius is apparently enough to get Arthur declared Emperor.
Outside-Context Problem: Essentially comes out of nowhere to shake things up.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Distracts Arthur long enough to let his court intrigues destroy Britain.
Writers Cannot Do Math: If Badon Hill happened in about 500 AD, it was far too late for any Western Roman Emperor to start making trouble in Gaul — the last Emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed in 476 AD, and the western empire ceased to have any power worth speaking of long before that. Also if there is an Emperor Leo that dates it to 457-474 (Leo I was succeeded by his grandson Leo II who died later that year). However later Geoffrey claims Arthur's defeat by Mordred happened in 542. Then again he could be a Roman usurper, people who try to make claim to the imperial throne by force, or an agent of the Eastern Roman Empire (which at the time Geoffrey sets his events was in the process of reconquering the Western Empire's old territories - notably, one of Justinian's agents in this was one Liberius).

Claudas of the Land Laid Waste

The King of France and sworn enemy of Ban and Bors. He first appears in Perlesvaus as an enemy of Lancelot. In the Vulgate, he aligns with Rome and wars with Uther, who devastates Clauda's kingdom in response, leading to its nickname of "La Terre Desert" (the Land Laid Waste). Despite being an antagonist of Arthur, Claudas held him in respect and was friendly with visting Round Table Knights, even fostering Lancelot's cousins Lionel and Bors the Chaste for a time.

Anti-Villain: He's considered one of the more complicated characters in the Vulgate Lancelot. He's an opponent of Arthur and an incredibly ruthless warrior, but he weeps when refusing to leave his people to die on the battlefield and genuinely loves his family.
Bullying a Dragon: What ultimately does him in is imprisoning Guenevere's cousin Elyzabel, forcing Arthur to declare war on him. It does not go well for the French, and in the end Malory wrights about Arthur conquering Claudas's kingdom.
Hero Killer: In the end he killed Ban and Bors while Arthur was distracted with conflict in Britain.
The High King: Seems to have been trying to be this in Gaul as Arthur was in Britain, although where Arthur tried to reconcile with enemies, Claudas crushed them utterly.
Historical Domain Character: Maybe? There have been arguments that Claudas was inspired by either the Frankish king Clovis, who would have contemporary with Arthur and whose campaigns are similar to Claudas's, or by Chlodio, a Frankish king who may have been Clovis's great-grandfather and has a phonetically similar name (although Chlodio's own existence is debateable). That said, there is no evidence that the author of Perlesvaus was thinking of either man when Claudas was introduced.
Outliving One's Offspring: His son Dorin was killed by Lionel and Bors.
Villain Respect: While he bears no love for Arthur thanks to Uther devestating his lands, Claudas does respect him as a just and chivalrous ruler.

Pellinore of the Isles

A king who has devoted himself to eternally hunting Glastinant the Questing Beast. The father of Lamorak, Aglovale, and in later versions like Malory Tor and Percivale. He has a familial relationship with the Grail Kings, and in Malory is the one who kills Lot of Orkney, for which he was murdered by Lot's sons.

Black Knight: Sometimes fights one. Sometimes is one, as in Howard Pyle's retellings.
Decomposite Character: In his first appearance, in the Vulgate Merlin, he is the Maimed King of Listeneise. In the Psot-Vulgate Cycle, the Maimed King is Pellam the Fisher King, who is Pellinore's brother, both being the sons of Pellehan.
Defeat Means Friendship: He defeats Arthur after being challenged to joust. The Sword in the Stone breaks during their fight, to be replaced by Excalibur. Arthur later asks him to join the Round Table.
Famous Ancestor: Joseph of Arimathea.
Family Theme Naming: Pellinore is the son of Pellehan and the brother of Pellam and Garlon.
Feuding Families: He killed Lot in combat, touching off a feud with the Orkney brothers which culminated in his death at the hands of Gawain and Gaheris and, later, the death of his son Lamorak.
Inconsistent Spelling: Pellinor.
The Quest: Pursues the Questing Beast.
Really Gets Around: Has four legitimate sons with his wife, and at least three illegitimate children with three different women.
Tragic Mistake: In his haste to rescue Nimue, he refused to stop and provide aid to a gravely wounded knight and his lady. He didn't learn until after the rescue that the lady—who killed herself with her dead lover's sword—was his daughter Eleine.
Unrelated in the Adaptation: Maybe. Malory never brings up his connection to the Grail lineage, but Pellam does mention to Percivale that the two of them are related in some ill-defined way.
Vague Age: Considering that he's the father of several knights, he might be older than average for the Round Table if he's considered part of it. Malory has Gawain knighted soon after Pellinore kills Lot and he swears revenge in return, which happens ten years later. This just makes Gawain and Arthur's ages even vaguer too.

Mark of Cornwall

Uncle of Tristan, husband of Isolde, and King of Cornwall.

Adaptational Villainy: Goes from a sympathetic cuckold in the original story to an evil Dirty Coward in Prose Tristan and later tales, then loops back around in many modern works - unless they lean on the Conomor connection.
Ambiguous Situation: In later works his relationship with the other figures associated with Cornwall (Gorlois and his family, Cador and Constantine, and King Idres).
Arch-Enemy: He's a constant thorn in Tristram's side. Dinadan doesn't like him much, either.
Bad Boss: He kills one of his men after they refuse to participate in his plan to capture and murder Tristram. The rest of his men proceed to abandon him and report his deeds to Arthur.
Cain and Abel: Evil Mark kills his brother Baudwin, the father of Alisander the Orphan.
Combat Pragmatist: He's not a good fighter, but he's good at dirty tricks and he likes ambushes.
Composite Character: There are a handful of figures in Welsh tradition and genealogical works whose name can be transliterated as "Mark." March ap Meirchion is listed in one geneaology as the cousin of Geraint and seems to have been the primary source, as he's given as Trystan's uncle in Welsh tradition and associated with the region of Britain Cornwall belongs to, but elements seem to have also been taken from Meirchion the Lean, a king of Rheged in the north of Britain, Meirchion's son Cynfarch the Dismal (the father of Urien of Rheged), and Merchwyn the Wild, a king associated with mid-south Wales and uncle of Saint Cadoc. In addition to all of them is Conomor, a Breton count recorded by Frankish authors who lived in the post-Clovis period and is one of the possible inspirations for Bluebeard, and an obscure figure named Cunomorus who was memorialized on a stone found in Cornwall as the father of one Drustanus.
Everyone Has Standards: Is utterly horrified by the deaths of Sir Lanceor and his lady in the wake of Balin's escapades and builds them a magnificent tomb.
Evil Uncle: In Prose Tristram he rapes his niece and kills her after she gives birth. He also kills his vengeful teen nephew Alisander the Orphan. And of course there is his relationship to Tristan.
Hero Killer: In Idylls of the King and Prose Tristram he actually succeeds in killing Tristram.
I Have Many Names: Might be the same character as Conomor, or Quonomorus.
Inconsistent Spelling: March, Marc, Margh, Marcus, etc.
King Incognito: Since his men abandoned him, Mark decides to capture and kill Tristram by disguising himself as a fellow knight. He runs into Lamorak and Dinadan, challenges them and gets his ass royally kicked. Dinadan mocks him for it, and when they all get to Tor's castle, Mark is revealed. Dinadan keeps insulting him, calling him a crappy king and coward, and decides to take him to Arthur himself, although Mark manages to escape.
Little Bit Beastly: Gets cursed with a horse's ears and mane in an early Breton legend, paralleling a legend about King Midas after he lost his touch. This is also a pun, as "Marc" is a Celtic word for "horse".
Pet the Dog: Erected a rich tomb over a slain knight and his lady, apparently as a gesture of legitimate kindness.
Punny Name: In some traditions he has the ears of a donkey like King Midas - "March" is Welsh for "Horse."
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: He ran away when "Lancelot" (actually Sir Dagonet in Sir Mordred's armor) challenged him.
Sibling Murder: Evil Mark kills his brother after raping his niece and killing her after she gave birth.
Villainous Incest: Evil Mark rapes his niece and kills her after she gives birth to his son Meraugis.

Pellam of Listeneise

The Fisher King, Pellam was the king of Listeneise, a mysterious kingdom that was resting place of the Holy Grail and Holy Lance. He was the brother of Pellinore, making him uncle of Percivale, and maternal grandfather of Galahad. Through one way or another he was speared through the thighs, leaving him paraplegic and unable to do much beyond sit in a boat and fish, hence his now iconic nickname. He remained in this state until he was healed as part of the Grail Quest.

Famous Ancestor: Joseph of Arimathea.
Fantastic Nuke: The Dolorous Stroke destroyed his castle, his kingdom and three neighboring kingdoms, causing mass death and destruction.
Fisher King: After receiving the Dolorous Stroke, his castle collapsed and his kingdom became a wasteland until he was healed by blood from the Spear of Destiny.
Good Is Impotent: Either unwilling or unable to stop Garlon from murdering people.
Groin Attack: Appears to have been the original location for his Wound That Will Not Heal. Dolorous, indeed.
Multiple-Choice Past: The myths have multiple maimed Fisher Kings, who may have originated as one character, even a knight of Arthur's, and two different versions of the Dolorous Stroke:
- When out hunting he happened upon Solomon's Ship and King David's Sword within. Feeling himself worthy, he had the temerity to try and draw the sword, whereupon a spear appeared out of thin air and delivered the Dolorous Stroke, impaling him through the thighs.
- When Sir Balin killed Sir Garlon at one of Pellam's feasts, the king broke Sacred Hospitality and attacked his brother's killer, breaking his sword. Balin fled, with Pellam in pursuit, until the reached the Grail Chamber, where he desperately grabbed the first weapon he could find and lashed out at the king—striking the Dolorous Stroke with The Spear of Destiny and bringing the castle down upon their heads, as well as basically nuking three neighboring kingdoms.
Sibling Yin-Yang: The "most worshipful man that lived", his brother Sir Garlon was a vicious Serial Killer with the power of invisibility.
Wound That Will Not Heal: However he received it, and wherever it is (hip, groin, thighs), the Dolorous Stroke doesn't heal until Galahad uses blood from the Spear of Destiny to cure it.

Ban & Bors

A pair of brothers who were kings of respectively, Benwick and Ganis/Gaunes or Gaul, in France. Fathers of Lancelot and of Bors respectively, among others.

Related in the Adaptation: Baudin Butor stated that they had a sister, Ivoire, who was wife of Constantine of Britain and mother to Constans, Ambrosius Aurelianus, and Uther - which would make them Arthur's grand-uncles and Lancelot Arthur's first cousin once removed.
Small Role, Big Impact: They are Arthur's allies early in his rule who help him secure his throne, but their sons are more significant to the overall story, particularly Lancelot. They're almost always mentioned as a par as well, while their sons stick out more as individuals.

Leodegrance

King of Cameliarde/Carmelide, father of Guinevere.

Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In Idylls of the King he and Uriens are brothers. As Uriens takes the Ryons role in that work, their war becomes a Cain and Abel conflict.
Composite Character: Just as some Welsh traditions had three Gwenhwyfars, so did those Gwenhwyfars have three mutually exclusive fathers - Cywryd of Gwent^note, Gwythyr ap Greidawl, and Ogyrfan the Giant. It is sometimes assumed that "Leodegrance" comes from "Ogyrfan" but the etymology tends to be a bit tortured in those arguments, and it's probable he actually got his familiar name from Earl Leodegar, a minor figure in Historia Regum Britanniae.
Inconsistent Spelling: Leodegran, Leodegan, Leondegrance as seen in Excalibur (occasionally leading to Viewer Name Confusion parsing it as Leon de Grance), etc. In the Welsh material Gwenhwyfar's father is instead called Ogyrfan/Gogyrfan/Gogfran Gawr, "Ogyrfan the Giant".
Small Role, Big Impact: He's the father of Guinevere and one of Arthur's early allies, and sometimes the keeper of the Round Table which predates Arthur himself and he gives it to him as a wedding gift. In some tellings, Arthur first meets Guinevere after he rescues Leondegrance and his castle/realm from enemy warlords/kings, making it sort of a Rescue Romance.

Hoel of Brittany

Arthur's kinsman and one of his early allies.

Continuity Snarl: Geoffrey says he is Arthur's nephew, the son of Arthur's sister and the King of Brittany, shortly after stating it was Lot who married Arthur's sister. Later he has Hoel and Gawain fight side by side but only Gawain is called Arthur's nephew. Later writers just made Hoel a "cousin" of Arthur. Then Geoffrey calls him both King and Duke of Brittany (or Armorica/the Armorican Britons).
Damsel in Distress: In Geoffrey his niece Helena is kidnapped by the Giant of St. Michael's Mount, and she dies before Arthur, Kay and Bedivere can save her. In Malory this becomes his unnamed wife.
Depending on the Writer: Geoffrey calls his father Budicius, but some editions have it as Dubricius.
Demoted to Extra: In Geoffrey he's one of Arthur's more prominent warlord allies who's even his nephew, but in later works focused on Arthur or the Knights of the Round Table in general he's less important, sometimes just namedropped. He remains a decently important character in Tristan's cycle however.
Historical Domain Character: Hoel and his father Budic seem to have been real figures from early medieval Breton history. Hoel is also identified with a Welsh Saint Hywel.
Inconsistent Spelling: Hoelus in Latin, Howel or Howell in English, and Hywel in Welsh - where his father is instead called Emyr Llydaw ("Emperor of Brittany"), a title that was later taken for a proper name.
Related in the Adaptation: Later authors made him the father of the second Iseult, Iseult of the White Hands, who married Tristan, and also the father of Tristan's stepmother.

Anguish of Ireland

The father of Iseult the Fair.

Decomposite Character: It's unclear if he's supposed to be or originated as the same person as Geoffrey's Anguselus of Albania, for one thing the associated names are different, but the names may show some kind of link.
Historical Domain Character: Usually connected with the historical Óengus mac Nad Froích, the first Christian king of Munster.
One-Steve Limit: Anguselus of Albania became Anguish of Scotland in later works, while this Anguish is called the same name but he's from Ireland. Other spellings include Anguishance, Anguissance, Anguissant, etc.

Aurelius Conanus

Sometimes spelled Aurelius Caninus, Aurelius is the second of the five tyrants castigated by Gildas. He appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth as King Conan, who had the chance to be a good king but blew it by assassinating his uncle King Constantine, imprisoning another uncle who was higher in succession, and murdering said uncle's two sons. As a result he reigned for only two years before dying.

Ambiguous Situation: Gildas doesn't give us any clues as to where he ruled like he does with the other tyrants, just a vague statement that he and Constantine are alike, so historians have been debating about him ever since. The "Aurelius" part of his name implies a connection to Ambrosius Aurelianus and thus he might be one of the grandchildren of Ambrosius that Gildas castigated earlier as unworthy of their ancestry, while the "Conanus/Caninus" part of his name has led to identifications with Cynan Garwyn of Powys or his more obscure relatives Cynan ap Millo and Cynan ap Casnar Wledig (Cynan is the Welsh form of Conan).
Animal Motifs: Lions (which he shares with Constantine) and Dogs (thanks to his name).
Blood Knight: Both Gildas and Monmouth describe him as a lover of civil wars and strife.
Evil Old Folks: He was appareantly getting on in years, as Gildas claims if he doesn't repent the only thing people will celebrate him for is his longevity.
Fallen Hero: How Monmouth interpreted him - somebody who had the qualities of a good king had he not engaged in kinslaying.
Self-Made Orphan: One of the crimes he's accused of is murdering his own father (this presumably would make him The Evil Prince, which Monmouth ran with although he changed the details).

Vortipor, the Protector of the Demetians

The third tyrant of Gildas, Vortipor was king of the Demetians (the tribe that lived in and gave their name to Dyfed in Southwest Wales). He is probably the second-best attested tyrant after Maelgwn, appearing in numerous genealogies and what may be his tombstone has been discovered in Dyfed that names him as "Protector" (though modern scholars with better understandings of linguistics have cast doubt on this find). Geoffrey of Monmouth makes him a decent king who came to the throne after Conan, defeated the Saxons regularly, and brought peace to Britain, but died after only four years.

Animal Motifs: Leopards, for he was "spotted with wickedness."
Evil Old Folks: Appareantly the eldest of the tyrants, as Gildas published De Excidio in the twilight years of Vortipor's life.
I Am Not My Father: Gildas accuses him of being a villainous version of this, praising Vortipor's father, Aergol the Long-Handed, as a good king.
Out of Focus: Gildas writes the least about him, and historians have noticed that what he does write comes off as considerably vaguer and closer to hearsay than the others.

Cuneglasus

The forth tyrant, Cuneglasus has been consistently identified with Cynlas the Red, a presumed king of the small kingdom of Rhos in northern Wales and a great-grandson of Cunedda. Gildas castigates him as a "tawny butcher" and an adulterer. Geoffrey of Monmouth didn't include him in his lists of kings, so Cuneglasus rarely appears in Arthurian literature. He's better known in Arthurian scholarly circles, however, as Gildas associates him with "the Fortress of the Bear" (generally taken to be Dinerth in Rhos) and that has led some scholars to identify him, or more commonly his father Owain the White-Toothed, as the historical Arthur.

Animal Motifs: Bears, which has encouraged the Arthurian theories mentioned above.
Not Blood Siblings: Accused of incest by Gildas, for he threw out his wife and married her sister (which is incestuous under Biblical law). Adding to the crime is that said sister was a nun (Gildas calls her "detestable", which could be taken to mean she was Nun Too Holy, but more likely was him victim-blaming).
Out of Focus: Due to not appearing in Monmouth's work and ruling what was at best a minor kingdom he doesn't feature much in historical Arthurian fiction, and if he does it's usually as his cousin's hatchet-man. Tellingly, the most prominent appearance of him in said fiction is literally In Name Only.

Maelgwn of Gwynedd

Maelgwn of Gwynedd, referred to by Gildas as Maglocunus and by Geoffrey of Monmouth as Malgo, and often simply referred to as Maelgwn Gwynedd is the last and probably the most well known of the Gildesian tyrants. Gildas's polemic against him is longer than the other four, lasting a good four paragraphs while the others had one or two. Maelgwn was a great-grandson of Cunedda (his father and Cuneglasus's father were brothers) and one of the earliest kings of Gwynedd. Gildas gives a litany of crimes to the man he names "Dragon of the Island" (the island, in this case, was likely Anglesey off Gwynedd's coast) including drunkeness, kinslaying, taking holy vows after said kinslaying and then renouncing them, puting aside his wives to take a new one whenever he got bored with the previous one, and killing his nephew so that he could marry said nephew's widow. Welsh tradition, however, describes a Maelgwn who was a Guile Hero a proponent of the church. He is alson known as a patron of Taliesin. Monmouth has Maelgwn (as Malgo) succeed Vortipor and even rebuild Britain briefly to what it was under Arthur, only for it too fall apart under his successors. The historical Maelgwn's death is recorded as occuring in 547, and a Triad associates his death with the Plague of Justinian.

The Alcoholic: Condemned for his love of the "Sodomitical vine."
Animal Motifs: Dragons, making him the earliest recorded Welsh monarch to be associated with one (although Gildas certainly wasn't being flattering with that association).
Breakout Character: Of the Five Tyrants he is the most well known and has been showing up more and more in Arthurian fiction, usually as a villain.
Founder of the Kingdom: While Cunedda is the official founder of Gwynedd, Maelgwn is the one more associated with kingdom, to the point that the name of the kingdom serves as his most common epithet.
Guile Hero: How early Welsh folklore depicts him. Most notably, he uses his wits and craftiness to become The High King, first imposing an impossible challenge (whichever king can float on his throne the longest will get the title) then rigging the challenge in his favor (building a chair designed to be bouyant, allowing him to win the challenge by default).
Historical Hero Upgrade/Historical Villain Upgrade: Yes, he's been subjected to both. He's noted as a patron of numerous churches even outside of Gwynedd, Welsh tradition makes him a cunning hero and one of Arthur's counsellors (although it strangely associates him with Dyfed and not Gwynedd), and Monmouth calls him the bane of tyrants. One the other hand, aside from Gildas's polemic he appears as an antagonist of Saint Cadoc. Because of how much Gildas looms over modern Arthurian scholarly work the modern perception of him leans strongly on the villain interpretation, with him occasionally appearing as an enemy of Arthur or even The Man Behind the Man to Mordred.
Have a Gay Old Time: Was a victim of this, thanks to Gildas using "Sodomitical" in the same way a modern person would mean hedonistic. Monmouth misread this as Maelgwn literally being a Sodomite.
The High King: The Historia Brittonum names him as this for the Britons. Gildas does mention him as having authority over the other tyrants, but context shows that this merely meant he was the greatest sinner of them all. On the other hand, Procopius mentions around the same time that the Britons are ruled by a single king, and it is possible that he was referring to Maelgwn.
Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil: Murdered his own uncle. Presumably, this was Owain the White-Toothed, although Gildas doesn't specify.
Large and in Charge: Sometimes named Maelgwn Hir ("Maelgwn the Tall") and traditionally High King. While that nickname seems to have been a mistake from post-Tudor poets, his father was known as Cadwallon Lawhir ("the Long-Armed") and his son was named Rhun Hir, so Maelgwn was more than likely lanky himself.

Coel Hen

Also known as Coel Godebog ("the Protector"), Coel Hen ("the Old") is the ancestral figure of the post-Roman kingdoms the Welsh referred to as Hen Ogledd ("The Old North"), the kingdoms located in what is now northern England between Hadrian's Wall and the River Humber. In Welsh tradition he is largely a name in the genealogies associated with the North, but Geoffrey of Monmouth used him in two unique roles, splitting him into three kings of Britain named Coilius. The first Coilius was a minor figure, one of a long list of names Geoffrey used to fill space. The second was supposedly the father of Saint Lucius and as a result a tradition grew up that he was the king of Britain who invited in Saint Joseph of Arimathea. The third Coilius was the most important in Geoffrey's narrative. Taking inspiration from a story recounted by Henry of Huntington, Geoffrey makes this Coilius the Duke and namesake of Colchester, who becomes king of Britain after killing the usurper Asclepiodotus. He made peace with the Roman emperor Constantius, and when Coilius died Constantius married his daughter Helena and became king of Britain himself, and from that union Constantine the Great was born. The actual Coel Hen, for the record, is usually dated to around 400, a good 60 years after Constantine's death.

Common Knowledge: Because of his epithet of "the Old" it's often repeated that Coel Hen is the inspiration for the nursery rhyme figure Old King Cole. This isn't accepted by the Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, the authors of which suggest a 16th century clothier surnamed Colebrook instead.
Egopolis: Medieval historians believed he was the namesake of Colchester, which was actually named after the Colne River. Kyle in Ayrshire has also been suggested as a namesake of his.
Famous Ancestor: The founding figure of the Northern British kingdoms. Urien of Rheged (the proto-Uriens), Peredur of York (the proto-Percivale), Llywarch Hen, and even the figure believed to have inspired Merlin all trace their descent from him. In addition, his daughter married Cunedda Wledig, so everyone who traces their descent from Cunedda traces their descent from Coel as well.
Founder of the Kingdom: Founded several kingdoms, in fact, the most enduring of which were Rheged and Elmet.
Related in the Adaptation: Suffice to say there's no evidence to connect Coel Hen with Saint Helena in any way, shape, or form (general consensus is that she was from Illyria like Constantius himself).

Cunedda Wledig

Initially ruler of the Gododdin tribe that lived around modern Edinburgh, the Historia Brittonum claims that Cunedda Wledig moved south with his eight living sons in northern Wales, where they defeated the invading Irish. The eldest son, Tybion, had died before the migration and so Tybion's son Meirion divided the kingdom with his eight uncles, creating the subkingdoms of modern (for the 9th century) Gwynedd. Genealogies would connect him to his presumably former neighbor Coel Hen by marrying him to Coel's daughter, and later genealogies gave him an Arthurian connection by making him Arthur's great-grandfather, the father of Igraine's mother. In addition, he lent his name to Geoffrey of Monmouth's fictional Cunedagius, a grandson of King Lear (yes, that King Lear) who overthrows his aunt Queen Cordelia and forces her to commit suicide.

Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear precisely when Cunedda was supposed to have moved from Gododdin to Gwynedd, and if he did so under his own volition or under orders from Britain's ruler. Depending on how one interprets the genealogies, his migration has been suggested to have been a military campaign by either Magnus Maximus or Vortigern - and that's not counting arguments that Cunedda didn't migrate to Gwynedd himself and his descendants merely claimed he did. Also, the cause and nature of Tybion's death and what connection, if any, Cunedda and his family have with King Lot, who is also associated with Gododdin (modern Lothian).
Famous Ancestor: Of the initial line of the kings of Gwynedd in the male line, and their successors the Aberffraw dynasty in the female line. This is of course not including the traditional story about his sons, which makes him the ancestor of a number of other lineages, most notably the kings of Ceredigion (a line which also includes several saints like Saint Carantoc and Saint David), or the Bonedd yr Awryr which makes him King Arthur's great-grandfather.
Founder of the Kingdom: Traditionally the founder of Gwynedd, although modern research suggests that term more accurately belongs to his grandson Cadwallon.
"Just So" Story: Because Historia Brittonum was written in Gwynedd not long after Gwynedd had conquered its neighbors, modern historians largely view the story of Cunedda's sons as being a justification for these conquests, as eight of the nine have names that are clear toponyms for those kingdoms - Tybion (Meirionydd, through his own son Meirion), Ysfael (Osfaelion), Afloeg (Afloegion), Rhufon (Rhufoniog), Dunod (Dunoding), Ceredig (Ceredigion, modern Cardiganshire), Dogfael (Dogfeiling), and Edeyrn (Edeirnion). Only Einion, the grandfather of Maelgwn Hir and Cuneglasus (and thus, ancestor of the rulers the Historia was written under the patronage of), lacks an eponymous kingdom.

Riothamus

An obscure figure who was active in 470, Riothamus was a British military figure who participated in Rome's war against the Visigoths. He had a correspondence with Sidonius Apollinarius, the Bishop of Clermont at the time, and a letter from Sidonius to Riothamus survives. The historian Jordanes calls him "King of the Britons" and describes his war with the Visigothic king Euric, who defeated Riothamus at the Battle of Deols, which Gregory of Tours expanded on. After Deols Riothamus fled into Burgundian territory and then disappears from the historical record, but in the modern period historians took notice of a Brythonic king fighting in Gaul contemporary with Emperor Leo and a theory developed that Riothamus was the true King Arthur, with Badon either being his last hurrah or retroactively attributed to him by the author of the Historia Brittonum. This theory has been significantly called into question in recent years (among other things, it hinges on the fact that there is a town in France called Avallon which would have been both in Burgundian territory and a few days riding distance from Deols, even though Sidonius, Jordanes, and Gregory of Tours never mention Avallon in relation to the Battle of Deols) but the association continues to show up in modern historical-leaning Arthurian fiction. Among historians, other figures have been put forward as Riothamus's identity, including Ambrosius Aurelianus, Vortimer, and even Vortigern, although because "Riatham" shows up as a singular name in the Genealogy of Saint Winnoc most historians agree that "Riothamus" was his actual name and he should be considered a seperate figure.

Ambiguous Situation: Virtually everything about him is mysterious - his paternity, whether he was from Brittany or Britain proper, if Riothamus was his actual name, whether or not he even died at Deols.
Composite Character: Arthur, Uther, Ambrosius Aurelianus, Vortimer, and Vortigern have all been put forward as candidates for the "real" Riothamus (or in the first case, Riothamus has been put forward as a candidate for the "real" Arthur). It is a rare piece of Arthurian fiction which includes Riothamus as his own character.
The High King: Jordanes names him "King of the Britons," which has been the main evidence for identifying him with someone more well known in the Matter of Britain.
Historical Domain Character: One of the more mysterious when it comes to this period, given how much of a cypher he is.
Meaningful Name: "Riothamus" is the Latinization of "Rigotamos", an Old Briton name meaning "Great Ruler." As a result it is often turned into a title or eptithet ("The Rigotamos") in historical fiction, although as mentioned above it is now generally accepted that his name just happened to be Riothamus.

Saints and Church Figures

Saint Joseph of Arimathea

The one from the Bible. A silver merchant who was a follower of Jesus and gave his tomb for Christ's burial, since the 12th Century he has been better known as the first person associated with the Holy Grail.

Adaptation Expansion: Being attached to the Arthurian and Grail mythos gave him a lot of "lore" apart from what the Church officially taught.
Famous Ancestor: In Grail lore he is the first Grail King and the ancestor of all later Grail Kings and by extent Pellinore and his sons, most notably Percivale. He is also the ancestor of Kings Ban and Bors and by extent Sir Lancelot, Sir Bors, and Sir Galahad. Late Welsh tradition gives him a daughter, Anna, who marries the ancestral figure Beli Mawr, thus making Joseph the presumed ancestor to figures as varied as Vortigern and Lot. One source even makes him the ancestor to Igraine, and thus both Arthur and Mordred.
Hijacked by Jesus: He essentially replaces Brutus of Troy as the central founding figure in later Arthurian lore, even getting a son whom part of the island is named after like Brutus did - King Galahad, the namesake of Gales (Wales).
Writers Cannot Do Math: The amount of generations between him and his supposed descendants varies from genealogy to genealogy, and they tend to be either too few or too many to exist between people in Post-Roman Britain and a figure contemporary with Jesus.

Saint Dubricius

In Geoffrey of Monmouth's version of events, the Archbishop of London who coronates Arthur. In Welsh tradition he has no Arthurian connection but was the grandson of the king of Ergyng (roughly modern Herefordshire).

Heroic Bastard: A spiritual version, the bastard son of Princess Efrddyl of Ergyng with no known father. He grows up to be a kind man and well respected spiritual leader who not only holds no ill will against his grandfather for attempting to kill him and his mother, but even cures his grandfather of leprosy.
The Mentor: To Saints Samson and Teilo, according to tradition.
Writers Cannot Do Math: He seems to be one of many characters Monmouth changed the lifespan of to be contemporary with Arthur - most readings of the genealogies tend to put him a generation after Arthur's traditional dates. A different tradition has him ordained by Saint Germanus, which even the most generous interpretations of Dubricius's lifespan would make difficult as Germanus was active in the 430s.

Archbishop Guethelin

The Archbishop of London in Geoffrey of Monmouth's tale who leads the lords and bishops of Britain in requesting aid from King Aldroenus of Brittany, leading to Constantinus becoming King of Britain.

Ambiguous Situation: It hasn't escaped notice that his name is remarkably similar to the name of Vortigern's grandfather Gwydolin, both being interpretations of the Roman name Vitalinus. That said, what connection, if any, he has to Vortigern (or the mysterious Vitalinus that Ambrosius Aurelianus fought at Guoloph) is never explored or explained as he disappears from the narrative after Constantinus arrives.
Gondor Calls for Aid: His only real role in the narrative is doing this. And Brittany answered.
Small Role, Big Impact: His call for aid from Brittany sets in motion the events that would lead to Arthur's reign.

Saint Illtud the Knight

In tradition a Breton prince whose mother was sister to Igraine, making him cousin to Arthur. He initially served his cousin as a warrior over his parents' wishes for him to join the church, hence his epithet, but later did become a priest and founded a seminary and church at what is now Llantwit Major in Glanmorgan (Llantwit is an English mispelling of Llanilltud). At Llantwit he taught many important figures of the Welsh church, including Saint David, Saint Samson, and Saint Gildas. He had a sometimes antagonistic relationship with Merchwyn the Wild, the king of the region Llantwit Major was located in.

Defector from Decadence: As a warrior in Arthur's court Illtud was an unruly youth who led his troops in reckless escapades around South Wales until he was chastised by Saint Cadoc, after which he accepted that his parents were right and became a priest like they wanted.
The Mentor: To a host of Welsh and Breton saints, among whom the most notable include Saints David, Tudwal, Samson, and Gildas.

Saint Derfel Cadarn

Derfel Cadarn ("the Mighty") was a son of King Hoel of Brittany who traveled to Britain to serve Arthur as a warrior. He became of the survivors of Camlann (Welsh tradition, unlike the Romances, usually has multiple survivors of Camlann) and after the battle became a priest who founded Llanderfel in Gwynedd.

Ambiguous Situation: Thanks to Monmouth's pseudo-history the accounts of Breton rulers from this time period are very confused and some interpretations put Derfel's birth a good three decades after Camlann's traditional date. Not helping matters is that the earliest records of Derfel only date back to the 15th century, although Llanderfel itself appears in older records.
Inconsistent Spelling: Derfel is sometimes Derfyl, Cadarn is sometimes Gadarn.
Retired Badass: A skilled warrior who survived Camlann through his own strength (instead of luck or good fortune like the survivors) and was content to retire to quiet hermitage.

Saint Cynwyl/Cynfelyn

Another survivor of Camlann who became a monk.

Ambiguous Situation: Cynwyl is said to have been the last of Arthur's men to leave him at Camlann, "on his horse Hengroen". It's unclear if Hengroen is supposed to be Arthur's horse or Cynwyl's, and if the latter, why he would take Arthur's horse. As Arthur's horse in other Welsh sources is named Llamrei, the usual interpretation is to make Hengroen Cynwyl's horse. Later Cynfelyn is said to have survived by "the speed of his horse".
Composite Character: Possibly two different warriors or saints confused for each other. Cynwyl appears in Culhwch and Olwen where it is mentioned he will be one the three survivors of Camlann and would be the last to leave Arthur (making him sort of a prototype of the Romances' Griflet and Malory's Bedivere). Cynfelyn also appears in Culhwch and Olwen ... as a patronymic, his daughter Gwaeddan being a maid for Sefylch, one of the warriors who helps Culhwch hunt the boar Twrch Trwyth, while another Welsh tradition states that a Cynfelyn participated in the battle of Arderydd (another battle that, like Camlann, the Welsh associated with tragedy). A late medieval Welsh poem lists seven survivors of Camlann - Morfran, Sandde, Saint Cynfelyn, Saint Cedwyn, Saint Pedrog, Derfel Cadarn, and Geneid Hir, with Saint Cynfelyn notably surviving in a manner similar to Saint Cynwyl (on horseback).
Inconsistent Spelling: The name Cynfelyn is a later version of Cunobelinus from much earlier in Geoffrey's Historia, the basis for Shakespeare's Cymbeline. Cynwyl, for its part, could also be spelled Cynwal.
Rule of Three: In one source, Cynwyl is one of three survivors alongside Sandde and Morfran.
Rule of Seven: In another much later source, Cynfelyn is one of seven survivors alongside Sandde, Morfran, Derfel and others.

Saint Pedrog

Another supposed warrior turned monk who survived Camlann. A spearman or lancer. Tradition makes him the son of King Glywys of Glywysing, which by extension makes him a descendant of Magnus Maximus, brother to Kings Gwynllyw and Merchwyn the Wild, and uncle to Saint Cadoc. Outside of Arthurian tradition he is known for founding Padstow in Cornwall and supposedly converting King Constantine of Cornwall to Christianity.

Composite Character:
- The similarity of his name to that of some renderings of Bedwyr's patronymic "son of Pedrawc/Pedrog" (in other renderings Bedrawt or Pedrod, etc.) has led a few modern writers to make it an alias of Bedwyr post-Camlann. Conveniently, Bedwyr was also said to be skilled with the spear (and, coincidentally, was with Arthur when the later first met Pedrog's brother Gwynllyw).
- He was confused with a later prince/king of Dumnonia called Pedrog Splintered-Spear, appearing with that title in a late Welsh work listing the knights of Arthur's court - although there's arguments that Pedrog Splintered-Spear and his father Clemens were, in fact, Saint Pedrog and Glywys attached to the Dumnonian genealogies ("Clemens" is somtimes interpreted as a Latinization of "Glywys"), possibly thanks to Saint Pedrog's own Cornish connections.
Inconsistent Spelling: Petroc, Pedrawg/c, etc.
Retired Badass: He survived Camlann by "the strength of his spear" in contrast to Derfel (mentioned next) who survived "by his strength alone", possibly meaning Derfel was physically stronger. In any case they became monks afterward.

Saint Gildas

The historical Gildas, the earliest author writing about the Briton and Saxon conflicts that became the "Arthurian era", who doesn't mention Arthur himself. Became a tangential part of the mythos himself through association with figures associated with Arthur.

Composite Character: Starting in the 19th Century, there was a tradition making him the same person as the Cumbrian poet Aneirin, as their names had similar meanings (both roughly translate to "Gilded") and both men traditionally came from northern Britain. This has fallen out of favor in recent years.
Historical Domain Character: He's the author who first wrote of Vortigern (though not by name), Ambrosius and the Saxon conflicts including the battle of Badon, which became (at least part of) the bedrock of the Arthurian legend.
Reasonable Authority Figure: One hagiography of him claims that he intervened after Melwas had abducted Guinevere, and he convinced Arthur and Melwas to make peace with Guinevere being returned to Arthur.
Related in the Adaptation: Later claimed by others to be a son of Caw of Prydain or Prydyn (in context, Pict-land?), one of Arthur's followers in the Welsh tale of Culhwch and Olwen. But Caw or Cawr of Prydain sometimes appears as a giant. Caw was said to have many sons, including Hueil or Huail, seemingly a rival of Arthur whom Arthur killed.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Almost literally the patron saint of this trope. His only surviving work, De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae ("On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain", often referred to as De Excidio for short) is a massive and scathing polemic against the secular and religious leaders of Britain and the British people in general, wherein he has nice things to say about a grand total of two men (Ambrosius Aurelianus and Aergol of Dyfed). The most well known part of De Excidio is a litany of crimes and sins directed to five kings in particular - Constantinus of Dumnonia (who would enter Arthurian legend as Sir Constantine of Cornwall), Aurelius Conanus, Vortipor of Demetia (modern Dyfed), Cuneglasus, and Maelgwn of Gwynedd. His polemic against the clergy that makes up the entire second half of De Exicidio is less well known as he doesn't give any names or specifics.
Un-person: Even in medieval times, writers noted that Gildas doesn't mention Arthur. One explanation they offered was that after Arthur killed one of his brothers, Gildas threw away all his writings about him and omitted him from his sole surviving work. Though elsewhere, Gildas is said to have forgiven Arthur for this.

Other Characters

Adragain the Brown

Appears in the Vulgate Merlin, Vulgate Lancelot, Le Livre d'Artus and Arthour and Merlin.

Inconsistent Spelling: Adragein(s), Adragenis, Agrauein(s).
Retired Badass: He became a monk upon retiring from serving as a knight.
Undying Loyalty: He previously served under Uther and later for his son Arthur.
What the Hell, Hero?: His reaction to Arthur failing to help Kings Ban and Bors against Claudas's second invasion of their lands.

Afallach

Afallach, the son of Beli Mawr, is a figure who shows up from time to time in Welsh folklore, usually as an ancestral figure. It is generally believed that, like Beli Mawr and Bran the Blessed, he was a deity who was euhemerized into a mortal king. Most of the time he's an ancestral figure in the distant past, but two of his daughters, Gwallwen and Modron, are listed as the paramours of the 6th century historical figures Maelgwn of Gwynedd and Urien of Rheged respectively, despite both men also being descended from him in the male line. For Arthuriana specifically it is believed that he was the namesake of Avalon (at the least, both his name and Avalon have the same linguistic root) and he may have lent his name, if little else, to King Evelake of Sarras, a figure associated with the Grail legend.

Famous Ancestor: One of the most famous in Welsh tradition, and generally surpased only by his ancestors. Almost all Welsh monarchs traced their ancestry to him in some way.
God Was My Copilot: He is a deity from Welsh Celtic legends who occasionally makes appearance in Welsh Arthurian works.
Immortality: Evelake/Mordrain wasn't pure enough to approach the Holy Grail, so he was struck blind and paralyzed for his arrogance. He asked to stay alive until he met the one who was worthy, and so God granted him immortality. He thus spent the centuries as a penitent monk until Galahad arrived and healed him, whereupon he enjoyed a holy death in Galahad's arms.
Meaningful Rename: As Evelake, he renamed himself "Mordrain" when Joseph of Arimathea baptised him.

Alain the Large

The nephew of Joseph of Arimathea according to Robert de Boron.

Adaptation Name Change: Perlesvaus calls him Gais the Large.
Fisher King: One of them to be exact, although he largely predates the themes associated with the trope - the Estoire del Saint Graal makes it clear he's called this because of a miracle where he was able to feed Joseph of Arimathea's followers with a single fish he caught in a similar manner to the Feeding of the Multitudes.
Flip-Flop of God: Robert de Boron early on wrote that he was celibate only to contradict himself latter by stating that he fathered several children.
Writers Cannot Do Math: Despite being the nephew of a man contemporary with Jesus, Robert de Boron has Alain contemporary with King Arthur - it's possible the Grail made Alain immortal, but de Boron doesn't specify this. As a result, later works which used him had to work around this - the Estoire del Saint Graal made him a distant ancestor of Percivale instead, while the Vulgate Merlin and Livre d'Artus simply make him the Grail King of Arthur's time and ignore his familial relationship with Joseph of Arimathea.

Amlawdd Wledig

Igraine's father and thus Arthur's maternal grandfather (and the grandfather of Culhwch and Saint Illtud). He first appeared as "Anblaud, King of the Britons" in the Life of Saint Illtud. In Culhwch and Olwen he is referred to as Anlawd Wledig and an inference can be made that in addition to Igraine and Culhwch's mother, another of his daughters was the unnamed mother of the secondary character Goreu ap Custennin. Two of his sons are also mentioned in the same tale. A 16th century geneaology, the Bonedd yr Awryr attaches him to the Dumnonian royal family in a way that, taking into account Welsh tradition also connecting Uther with this family, would make Uther and Igraine second cousins. However, a more popular tradition connected Igraine to the Grail royalty, making her the granddaughter of King Lambor (and thus cousin to Pellinore and Pelleas). Beyond his genealogical connections, Amlawdd has no traditions associated with him. He appears in none of the Welsh poetry or romances or any of the Triads.

Amlawdd's epithet is usually translated as "the Warlord" or "the Ruler," although its actual meaning is "Country-Like" and no one knows the actual reason he and other Welsh figures have it. His personal name is considered unique in Welsh and may actually come from the Old Norse Amlóði, the same source as Hamlet.

Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: Peniarth Manuscript 178 reconciles his existence with the genealogy of Igraine given in L'Estoire del Saint Graal by making him the son of King Lambor and thus brother of Pellehan, taking advantage of the fact that Igraine's father was unnamed in that source. This would make Arthur the second cousin of Percivale and his brothers and give Arthur a connection to the Grail lineage. The alternative genealogy in Bonedd yr Arwyr is also this, connecting him with the Dumnonian kings and making Igraine and Uther second cousins. Finally, Culhwch and Olwen makes him the father of Gwrfoddw Hen, a king associated with Ergyng (Herefordshire) who may post-date the Arthurian period by at least a century.
Famous Ancestor: His sole purpose in Welsh tradition seems to have been this, a unifying figure numerous Welsh saints and heroes could be connected with. The Bonedd yr Awryr even takes it even further by establishing that his wife was the daughter of Cunedda, the ancestral figure of Gwynedd (by extent, she would be the granddaughter of Coel Hen, the ancestral figure of the Northern kingdoms), connecting Amlawdd's descendents with the ruling families of Wales.
Inconsistent Spelling: Annlawdd, Anblaud, Anlaud, Anlawdd. Technically speaking, the modern Welsh form would by Amlodd, but that rarely shows up.

Balin le Savage, the Knight with Two Swords

The unluckiest knight in Arthur's court, Balin was the anti-Galahad, the knight who struck the Dolorous Stroke. Usually said to have died before the Round Table was established.

Adaptational Villainy: In the Romances Balin isn't evil, he is simply a man who just will not take two seconds to think about his actions. He gleefully draws a sword that is explicitly said to be cursed, then uses it to behead the Lady of the Lake in front of Arthur's entire court and only after doing so explains why. He kills Sir Lanceor without a second thought. He murders Garlon in front of King Pellam - Garlon's brother - without explaining to Pellam that Garlon was a wanted criminal, and then defends himself by spearing Pellam with the Holy Lance itself, an act so sacrilegious that Listenoise is transformed into a wasteland - nobody is really surprised when Merlin shows up with a The Reason You Suck speech ready. And yet, the throughline in all of this is that Balin was at heart a good man who wanted to live up to the knightly ideal - he had legitimate greviances against the Lady of the Lake, Garlon was a sociopathic murderer - but modern adaptations tend to straight up make him an evil knight who intentionally causes the Dolorous Stroke. Notably, these adaptations omit Balin's encounter with Sir Garnish.
Ambiguous Situation: Was in prison for killing Arthur's cousin, a relative of Arthur that has never been mentioned before and would never be mentioned again.
Blood Knight: Deconstructed. Everytime Balin tries to solve problems with violence, it usually goes wrong.
Cain and Abel: With his brother Balan. As extra tragedy, they are each other's Cain and don't realize it until it was too late.
Evil Twin: Modern adaptations tend to give him this dynamic with Balan. Sometimes he's even an Evil Split Personality of the latter.
Exactly What It Says on the Tin: He is a knight and he has two swords. He doesn't dual-wield them, just carries them. His second sword is cursed if not wielded by the best knight in the world - Balin took this to mean himself, but it was actually intended for Galahad.
Fantastic Nuke: The Dolorous Stroke sent a wave of destruction through Listeneise and several neighboring kingdoms, killing untold numbers of people.
Gone Horribly Wrong: After the Dolorous Stroke Balin has a brief interlude when he talks down one Sir Garnish of the Mount from suicide and takes Garnish to see his lady love, the daughter of Duke Hemel. Unfortunately, said daughter is in the arms of her actual lover, leading Sir Garnish to decapitate both of them and then kill himself anyway, leaving Balin in a Heroic BSoD.
Hero Killer: Kills Sir Lanceor when the later tries to apprehend him for killing the Lady of the Lake, which leaves Lanceor's lady Driven to Suicide.
Murphy's Law: He has a grand total of one genuine success to his name - capturing King Ryons alongside Balan. At all other times his attempts to help a situation just make things worse or even create a situation that didn't exist before.
Mutual Kill: He and his brother Balan ultimately kill each other.
Poor Communication Kills: Yes, Balin, it's perfectly fine to murder the king's brother in front of that king's entire court instead of explaining he's wanted for murder in Camelot.
Together in Death: He and Balan are buried together in the same tomb.
Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Probably one of the most iconic in fiction.

Balan

Balin's brother. Also died before the Round Table was established.

The Nicknamer: In Tennyson's Idylls of the King, it's he who calls Balin by his titles.
You Kill It, You Bought It: He encountered a knight guarding a castle who challenged him to a duel. He killed him, then was compelled to replace him and wear his armor, and this is how Balin encounters and fights him without recognizing him.

Britomart

The protagonist of Book III of Edmund Spencer's The Faerie Queene, a female knight from the time of Arthur who in Spencer's allegory represents Chastity. She's also the daughter of Rience.

Action Girl: Probably the most well-known in traditional Arthurian fiction.
Amazonian Beauty: Comes with being both beautiful and a powerful warrior - ironically, she goes on to kill the queen of the actual Amazons.
Ambiguous Situation: Rience isn't really a character in The Faerie Queene so it isn't clear how the explicitly heroic Britomart fit into his war with Arthur, if she was loyal to him like Gawain was to Lot or if this was a case of Rebellious Princess.
Expy: Of the Matter of France lady knight Bradamante.
Meaningful Name: She's named after the Cretan godess Britomartis thanks to a folk etymology that believed Britomartis means "Martial Briton", which describes Britomart well. Britomartis actually means "Sweet Virgin", but that also describes Britomart well.
Seven Heavenly Virtues: Chastity, representing the military might of England as personified by the virginity of Queen Elizabeth I. In this she contrasts with her friend Amoret, who represents Marital Love.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: Britomart is still plenty feminine, but being an Action Girl means she falls into this dynamic by default with the more traditional Amoret.
Warrior Princess: Pretty much goes without saying as the warrior daughter of a king.

Belinus & Brennius

Belinus and Brennius

Two brother Kings of Britain said to have led the Celtic sacking of Rome in 390 B.C.

Historical Domain Character: This seems to be a garbled account of the real Gaulish sacking of Rome, led by one Brennus.
Public Domain Character: Belinus, for his part, seems to either be the Brittonic genealogical figure Beli Mawr (aside from similar names, both men are said to have built a road from Cornwall to Caithness) or a [[Demythification]] of the Celtic deity Belenus, or possibly a composite of both. If he is Beli Mawr, then this would make Brennius a composite of Brennus and Bran the Blessed.

Brutus of Troy

According to Geoffrey of Monmouth and subsequent authors, a Trojan exile who led a band of followers and conquered Britain from a race of giants. Britain was supposedly named after him.

Bash Brothers: With Corineus of Cornwall. Upon meeting in Gaul the two become inseparable and it is only with Corineus's help that Brutus conquers Britain. They even attempted to seal this bond by marrying Brutus's son Locrinus to Corineus's daughter Gwendolyn.
Depending on the Author: He is said to be either Aeneas' grandson or great-grandson.
Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He and his band of Trojan exiles defeated an entire island of Giants to claim what would later be named Britain (after Brutus) for themselves.
Family Theme Naming: An invoked trope by Geoffrey to justify his pseudo-history. While Brutus was a perfectly normal Latin name, it's also meant to be the source of the name "Britain." Brutus's sons follow suit, with Locrinus (Logres, taken from "Lloegyr", the Welsh word for England), Albanactus (Albany, a poetic name for Scotland), and Camber (Cambria, the medieval Latin word for Wales), and it continued with Locrinus's bastard daughter Sabrina (the Latin name for the River Severn) and Brutus's nephew Turonus (Tours, France). This was even extended to figures connected to Brutus but not biologically related to him, including Albion the Giant (from the poetic name for Britain) and Brutus's close friend Corineus (Cornwall).
Founder of the Kingdom: And London, originally New Troy.
Out of Focus: As the Grail Story grew, the explicitly pagan Brutus fell out of favor and Joseph of Arimathea became the primary founder and ancestral figure of Arthurian Britain. He still remained an important figure in English folklore outside of the Arthurian mythos, however, until the downfall of the Stuarts.

Culhwch

Arthur's maternal cousin from the Welsh tale of Culhwch and Olwen.

Engagement Challenge: Has to do an impossible series of tasks to win Olwen's hand.

Ector

The father of Kay and foster father of Arthur.

Good Parents: To all indications he treated Arthur as lovingly as his natural-born son, and upon learning that he was the true King of England requested only that Kay be made seneschal. Sometimes he does not even tell Arthur he is adopted until he is due to become king. In other versions Arthur is aware he's a foster son but is not made to feel different in any other way.
Inconsistent Spelling: Antor or sometimes Auctor, thus eventually Hector or Ector (French/Breton/German), Cynyr (Welsh).
Muggle Foster Parents: After Merlin takes the baby Arthur away due to his deal with Uther, he leaves him to be raised by Sir Ector who never knows his foster son's true identity.
Secret-Keeper: Sometimes he does know and only tells Arthur the truth after he draws the sword from the stone.

Gorlois of Tintagel

The Duke of Cornwall under Uther. His stronghold Tintagel is where Arthur's conception (and sometimes birth) happens.

Ambiguous Situation: He seems to be the ruler of Cornwall when he shows up, but it's unclear how he relates to Mark, the King of Cornwall who shows up later in other works. Malory attempted to square this circle by making him the Duke of Tintagel in Cornwall, but that just raises the question of if he's a foreign duke subject to the King of Cornwall or a vassal of Uther in rebellion.^note
Bed Trick: He's impersonated by Uther Pendragon through Merlin's magic to take Igraine to bed and conceive Arthur.
Composite Character: The Welsh translations of Geoffrey have him replace Geraint as Cador's father, while the Prose Merlin changes his name to Hoel (although it's unclear there if he's meant to be the same figure as the Hoel who aids Arthur).
Related in the Adaptation: The Welsh translations of History of the Kings of Britain make him Cador's father and by extent Constantine's grandfather.
Small Role, Big Impact: He's mainly there to be Igraine's first husband but that means he's the father of Morgan le Fay and Morgause and Elaine.

Cador

The Duke of Cornwall under Arthur. In the Welsh Geneaologies he is the son of Geraint and father of Constantine (and a handful of folk saints). Later upgraded to be a knight of the Round Table, seemingly and usually one of the older ones.

Age Lift: He usually appears to be older than Arthur, who is said to become king at 15 years old while he is an established duke. After later authors made him a knight of the Round Table, this is usually followed especially because his son becomes one too. But sometimes he appears to be much younger, as for instance he is made to be a peer of Sir Caradoc, Arthur's great-nephew (himself a Decomposite Character from a likely elder figure to Arthur).
Ambiguous Situation: He seems to be the ruler of Cornwall when he shows up, but it's unclear how he relates to Gorlois, who first appears in the same work (Geoffrey's Historia), and to Mark, the King of Cornwall who shows up later in other works. He's considered Arthur's kinsman, and it's unclear how too. Due to this kinship, his son Constantine eventually becomes Arthur's heir and successor.
Cool Sword: Not his sword, but he appears as the sword-bearer of Arthur in "The Dream of Rhonabwy" where he gets to show off its flame-like brightness when unsheathed. In the same context he's said to be the one tasked with suiting Arthur up with his weapons and armor for battle.
Inconsistent Spelling: Cadorius or Cato in Latin, identified with the names/figures Cado and Cadwy and Cadwr in Welsh. The son of Geraint is sometimes given as Cadwy, so to the extent that both might be Historical Domain Characters, they're the inspiration for the literary/legendary figures, but it's far from certain.
Parental Substitute: Sometimes Guinevere is his ward, as in his first appearance, but otherwise in later works this is omitted or downplayed if Guinevere's father Leondegrance is present.

Sandde & Morfran

In Welsh tradition, two warriors who survived Camlann thanks to their appearances. Sandde, the Angel-Faced, was so beautiful that other warriors mistook him to be an angel from Heaven, while Morfran ("The Great Raven") was so hideous that they mistook him to be a demon from Hell. This is Sandde's only appearance (although he curiously has a similar named to Saint David's father) but Morfran appears independently in the Hanes Taliesin as the son of the enchantress Cerridwen.

Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Sandde is so attractive that this is invoked.
Cursed with Awesome: Morfran's ugliness allows him to survive the most cataclysmic battle in Arthurian legend.
Due to the Dead: Sandde's most noted action is keeping the carrion birds away from the corpse of Arthur's son Duran after Camlann.
Frazetta Man: Part of Morfran's ugliness is that he is covered in hair like a stag.
Meaningful Name: "Sandde" is Welsh for "Saint."
Those Two Guys: Tend to have this dynamic when they show up in modern fiction.

Hengist & Horsa

The pair of brothers who, according to legend, began the Anglo-Saxon invasions that transformed a decent chunk of Great Britain into England. Sometimes identified as Angles or Jutes instead of Saxons, but then the Britons (and Scots and Irish) tended to lump all the Germanic invaders together under "Saxon".

Animal Theme Naming: Hengist means "Stallion," while Horsa means... "Horse."
Heroic Lineage: A few generations removed from Odin. Not quite Divine Parentage but still.
Historical Domain Character: Maybe. Their legends might preserve memories of real leaders, but on the other hand, heroic and often divine twins is a recurring motif in mythology. Hengist himself is also mentioned in Beowulf and the Prose Edda.
Inconsistent Spelling: Hengest and Hors
Intercontinuity Crossover: Hengist may create one, as his appearance in Beowulf ties the Arthurian mythos into Germanic and Norse mytholgy.
Face–Heel Turn: They initially earned their keep fighting people for the Britons, then broke off to become invaders.
Greater-Scope Villain: For the early legends which deal primarily with Arthur fighting the Saxon invasion; traditionally, both men are dead by this time, but their armies and kingdoms are still waging war on the native Cymry.
Hired Guns: Their intial occupation, and indeed the reason they were invited to Britain in the first place; Vortigern required an army to fight invading Scots and Picts.
Mutual Kill: Possibly in Horsa's case. Horsa and Vortigern's son Cadeyrn die at the same battle, although it's left vague if they killed each other or simply happened to coincidentally take mortal wounds during the conflict.
Nasty Party: Hengist pulled one on Vortigern and his nobles. At his signal, the Saxons drew hidden knives and slaughtered the Britons—sparing only Vortigern, who was then subjected to blackmail.
Satellite Character: Horsa is always secondary to Hengist, and dies before him.
Sibling Team: Until Horsa dies.

Rowena

The beautiful daughter of Hengist who became the wife of Vortigern. This gave Hengist some claim on the British throne.

Honey Trap: Hengist had her entertain Vortigern at a feast and he was quickly smitten. Soon, Hengist not only became his father-in-law but gained even more land for the Saxons.
Inconsistent Spelling: Renwein, Renwen, Rhonwen, Ronwen, Rowen... the form Rowena later became better-known though Walter Scott's Ivanhoe.
Kill It with Fire: Sometimes said to have died together with Vortigern this way.
Second Love: In some tellings Vortigern was already married once, and sometimes his first wife is even still alive. Either way, their relationship offends his sons who eventually rebel.
Unholy Matrimony: The Britons or at least the Church thought so, for not only was she Saxon but also pagan.
Wicked Stepmother: She had her stepson Vortimer poisoned when he briefly deposed his father. In some versions she fakes a Heel–Faith Turn to get on his good side.

Cerdic of Wessex

One of the first Saxon leaders. The traditional founder of Wessex, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom that would ultimately unify the others to form the Kingdom of England.

Decomposite Character: Geoffrey appears to have split him into at least three figures: Cherdic, a contemporary of Vortigern; Cheldric, one of the enemy leaders at Badon; and Chelric, an ally of Modred at Camlann - and possibly as Keredic, who succeeded Maelgwn as king of Britain (although Monmouth was more likely thinking of Ceredig of Elmet in that case).
Founder of the Kingdom: Of Wessex (named after the "West Saxons"). The royal dynasty of Wessex, most notably Alfred the Great, claimed him as their ancestor - and by extent, this makes him ancestor to most of the monarchs of England and Great Britain.
Heroic Lineage: Also descended from Odin.
Historical Domain Character: Probably, which is why he tends to pop up in modern historical-leaning Arthurian fiction despite having little presence in the medieval legends. Curiously, his name appears to be Brittonic instead of Germanic, as it's related to Ceretic/Caradoc/Caratacus, leading to speculation about whether he was part or full Briton despite leading non-Britons, and whether the distinction was even all that important back then (the name of his son, Cynric, also has Brittonic elements - it translates to "Dog-King" - although it doesn't match to existing Welsh names).
Inconsistent Spelling: Not directly mentioned as "Cerdic" in any of the legends, only historical or pseudo-historical material, but nevertheless his name does appear through variants or in garbled form as seen above. Walter Scott also misspelled his name as "Cedric" in Ivanhoe and it has since become a common name.
The Quisling: Maybe, since a certain Ceretic appears in the Historia Britonum as Vortigern's interpreter when dealing with Hengist.
Related in the Adaptation: Adaptations often make him a blood relative of Vortigern, usually as Vortigern's son by Rowena, thanks in part to both men being connected with a group of people called the Gewissae.
Villain Protagonist: Of the ironically-titled novel Conscience of the King by Alfred Duggan.
Worthy Opponent: A common interpretation of him in modern Arthurian fiction, including the film King Arthur where he's the main antagonist. In many cases, due to this status he ends up surviving the story, in light of him being the supposed progenitor of the Wessex kings. But sometimes he just dies too.

Aelle of Sussex

One of the first Saxon leaders, the traditional founder of Sussex and the first Anglo-Saxon leader to bear the title Bretwalda (Overlord).

Big Bad: In modern works that focus on Arthur versus the Saxons, he tends to be cast as this, being more powerful than Cerdic and other Saxon leaders.
Founder of the Kingdom: Of Sussex (named after the "South Saxons"). It should be noted that he and his youngest son Cissa are the only known kings of Sussex.
Greater-Scope Villain: If he's not the main Saxon villain in works going for that angle, he will be this instead due to being the Saxon overlord.
The High King: As Bretwalda. This makes him something of a unique take on the trope, as he and the people he's High King of are the antagonists of Arthur.
Historical Domain Character: Probably, as he's mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and by the Venerable Bede (who is the first one to grant Aelle the Bretwalda title). Because he's associated with the title of Bretwalda and disappears from the historical narrative around the same time Badon is traditionally held to have occured, it is common for modern historical-leaning Arthurian fiction to make him the main Saxon threat despite never appearing in traditional Welsh or Romantic sources at all, and often have him die at Badon (which provides a convenient explanation for why Sussex never amounted to much after him).
Inconsistent Spelling: His name is also rendered as Aella.
Starter Villain: Historical-leaning works which focus on Arthur versus Mordred tend to have Aelle as this instead of the Big Bad (since that's Mordred's role).

Osla Big-Knife

One of Arthur's companions in the tale of Culhwch and Olwen.

BFS: His knife is big enough to serve as a bridge.
Defeat Equals Friendship: Implied, as another Welsh tale, "The Dream of Rhonabwy", mentions him as the Saxon leader at the battle of Badon. It's also worth noting that the Saxons probably derived their name from seax, a kind of knife.
Historical Domain Character: May be based on King Offa of Mercia (another Saxon kingdom), though he lived centuries after the first Saxon incursions so the two may have been confused instead. Other names that have been put forward include another Offa, who was ancestor to the kings of Essex and would have been more contemporary with Arthur, and the phonetically similar Esla, who was the traditional paternal grandfather of Cerdic.
Hoist by Their Own Petard: While helping Culhwch with his Engagement Challenges, he apparently drowns in a river after his scabbard fills with water.
Red Baron: Gyllellvawr or Kyllellvawr, meaning Big Knife. Offa of Mercia is called the same in historical records.

The Black Knight

The Black Knight is a common recurring motif in Arthurian stories, an imposing knight wearing pure black armor.

Black Knight: The Trope Namer, although not all of them were evil.
Composite Character: There are thirteen distinct black knights in the source material of varying morality (in fact, one of those black knights was Lancelot in disguise), but modern portrayals tend to combine them into a singular, villainous character.
Dark Is Evil: Usually, but not always.
Meaningful Name: Wears black armor.

The Green Knight

Sir Bertilak the Green Knight was a mysterious figure who came to Arthur's court on Morgan le Fay's orders and challenged the knights to a contest wherein one of them would behead him, and then in a year's time that knight would have to be beheaded by the Green Knight in turn. Only Gawain was brave enough to take up this challenge.

Amazing Technicolor Population: He is completely green.
Black Knight: Except green. He isn't really evil though.
Losing Your Head: But his head still talks.
Meaningful Name: He is completely green, as is his gear and horse, and he carries a bough of holly in one hand (and an axe in the other). Some scholars think he may have pagan roots as a nature figure.
Off with His Head!: He rides into Camelot and dares anyone to hit him once with his great axe, on the condition that he will return the blow after A Year and a Day. Sir Gawain takes up the challenge and takes off his head with one swing, but he just picks up his head and leaves after reminding Gawain that he owes him his head too at the appointed time.
One-Steve Limit: Another knight of the Round Table, Sir Pertolepe was also known as the Green Knight. He had three Color-Coded for Your Convenience brothers.
Secret Test of Character: The entire ordeal is meant to test the bravery and honor of the knights of Camelot. Gawain mostly succeeds, but his acceptance of magical aid from the Lady of Haute Desert earns him a nick on the neck and minor chastisement from the Green Knight.

Characters / Arthurian Legend

Characters from adaptations/media based off the Arthurian Legend

Characters from the Arthurian Legend

King Arthur's Court

Knights of the Round Table

Evil Knights

Fair Ladies

Other Kings

Saints and Church Figures

Other Characters

Belinus and Brennius

Alternative Title(s): Lancelot The Knight Of The Cart

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Characters / Arthurian Legend

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Characters from adaptations/media based off the Arthurian Legend

Characters from the Arthurian Legend

King Arthur's Court

Knights of the Round Table

Evil Knights

Fair Ladies

Other Kings

Saints and Church Figures

Other Characters

Belinus and Brennius

Alternative Title(s): Lancelot The Knight Of The Cart

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